


Best Used for Light-Saber Fights

by ELL10TTE



Series: The Pied Piper [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Band Fic, College AU, M/M, also hinatas an artist, band au, i think theres swearing and over all tom foolery too, its like six in the morning guys i got up five minutes ago, kageyama plays the flute okay, references to past OiKage, thats basically it plus some weird orange haired kid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ELL10TTE/pseuds/ELL10TTE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama Tobio is an average college student with a completely uneventful and actually kind of boring life. That is, until he literally runs into Hinata Shouyou and suddenly everything in his normal every-day life becomes something else. Something sunnier.<br/>But it's not like he'd ever admit to the fact. He just wants to play the flute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No it's not a girl's instrument

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so um i did some chapter rearranging uh basically chap 1= chap 2 + 3, chap 2= chap 3 + 4, chap 3= chap 5 + 6 (haha yeah i wrote a chapter 6 how neato is that)  
> so i might do this a few times worry not as all the original content is still there but compacted. if you notice any mistakes please tell me, and im sorry for any confusion

He doesn't quite remember when the first time he wanted to play the instrument, but he remembers the second time, clear as day. It was the darker end of the afternoons, when the sun had long since set behind the hills. He had trudged over to the school at almost 6:30 in the afternoon, his breath fogging up the glass. He was young; he wasn't even a fifth-year yet. He remembers hearing rumors floating about the neighborhood about a middle school band concert that was happening that night. And for whatever reason, he was going to see it.

That was the second time.

He was late and was forced to slip into the very back row. The entire audience was made up of parents and siblings, and he refused to make eye contact with him lest any of them realize that he had little to no connection to this school. The concert itself was mediocre at best, and actually pretty awful if you wanted to be mean. They had to start over at one point because some idiot brass player started going three times the correct speed when he came in. I was just nervous! Nervous does not mean coming in three times as fast in the WRONG MEASURE! He heard them arguing afterwards. 

He wasn't too sure when he'd made the decision, but on his way home the thought suddenly occurred to him. I want to play the flute. It was a weird thought and he tried to swat it out of his head (he hadn't even HEARD the damn things at the concert) but the thought stuck fast. He wanted to play the flute.

And just like that, Kageyama Tobio became a flutist.

* * *

That morning the alarm clock jolted him out of bed at 5:30 in the morning. It sounded like a bomb next to his ear and frantically he tried to find the little switch that would shut it off. For some reason, Kageyama never used the actual button to turn off his alarm. And for some reason, Kageyama Tobio was awake at 5:30 in the morning.

He quieted his hammering heartbeat and tried to remember why he'd set an alarm for that early. Did I have class this morning? Who's visiting? What the fuck? For a few brief moments he lied back down and pretended it was just jerky Oikawa who'd wanted to pull some dumb prank on him this morning. He actually fell asleep again briefly before his eyes shot open and he sat up abruptly. 

"Composing," he whispered. He had wanted to do some composing. It made sense, he thought, throwing himself out of the bed and trying to get dressed properly. It _was_ always quieter in the mornings. Kageyama thought about Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, how they were probably snoring the day away in each other's arms right now. He thought of Oikawa, who was probably too hung-over to get up within the next twelve years, and of Iwaizumi who was probably trying to get him up so they could go to class that morning. Kageyama stifled a laugh, trying to be as quiet as possible. He picked up the strap of his flute, but stopped half-way and picked up a different one instead. 

Capital Edition Jupiter, closed holes. Sure it was louder but the tone quality was so nice he just had to. Sure, it was hard to control but he'd manage just fine. He had the whole day to himself since he didn't have any classes, after all. He could completely re-learn every technique and more given the time he'd forced himself awake. 

Kageyama skipped his way down the stairs and tiptoed down into the recording room. It was, technically, Oikawa's, but who gives a shit everyone uses the damn thing _except_ him so what the hell. He unclasped the case, relishing in the loud clicks and started assembling his instrument.

It needs to be polished, he noted with a frown. Since he didn't have enough savings to get it professionally looked at he settled for gently wiping it with his t-shirt instead. He took out a tuner that he somehow fit into his case despite there barely being enough room for the flute itself and quickly tuned. Then slowly, he started to play.

It started at first with a B flat scale, the first one you ever learn. He played it straight through, he played in variations. He hadn't had any plans and he didn't want to get his folder for band at college since it was all the way back in his room. Kageyama questioned why it wasn't on the music stand when he brought it down with him, but didn't dwell on it. He pressed record and just started doing whatever. He trilled randomly, he held out notes randomly. He wasn't even sure what key he wanted to be in since he threw in enough sharps and flats for all of them. It was going to be a hassle to decode later, but for now Kageyama let his muse take over the work.

He didn't emerge from the recording room until everyone came home for lunch.

* * *

 Kageyama woke up just in time for class to end (which he totally was not trying to do shut up) and packed up his things as quickly as possible. He was done with classes for the day and was going to swing by the music store to get an actual book. Why he didn't have even one after going to a college for a degree _in music_ was beyond him, but it was going to happen. Quickly, he stuffed his Jupiter into his backpack along with his folding stand and then he was out the door before the crowd of students coming out of the classrooms drowned him.

At this point in his musical career, Kageyama Tobio was grateful for two things. One: That he was one of the few gifted with an instrument that weighed approximately zero pounds and could fit in his backpack (he looked at a tuba player trying to lug his instrument down the stairs and sighed) and Two: that no one made fun of the fact that he was a male-flutist anymore.

Back in middle-school and even highschool, Kageyama was constantly outed for being a male-flutist (it's a girl's instrument you loser!) but now he was in college and there were a lot more of him. So people left him alone. He used to use the excuse that he picked the instrument because he was constantly surrounded by "fourteen to fifteen cute girls at once" but now he was flamboyantly gay and everyone knew it, so the excuse didn't work anymore.

But it's not like it's relevant anymore anyways, Kageyama thought on his way out of the building. The trees that surrounded the building on the south side blocked out the sun and for a moment he considered going the long way to avoid walking in it. But then his inner laziness took over and he started turning the corner of the building.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and Kageyama jumped. Quickly he looked around, making sure that no one had saw that embarrassing display. It was Yamaguchi and his heart sunk for a moment. He thought it was one of his friends. Not that Yamaguchi wasn't great and all but the guy's best friend was a flute for crying out loud. He needed company. Yamaguchi was asking if anyone had seen his meal card. Kageyama disregarded the post. Oikawa probably took it as a joke. Or maybe Tsukkishima took it instead of his. Kageyama sighed. This was the problem with cohabiting with a bunch of idiots.

He rode the subway downtown and walked into the music store. The overwhelming smell of that mint mouthpiece cleaner-thingy engulfed him and he made a mental note to buy some later. His lip-plate was disgusting. The shopkeeper waved to him and he waved back uneventfully. The first thing Kageyama decided to do was immediately gravitate over to the area on the wall where the flutes were hanging. He silently pressed down the keys of a piccolo. Kageyama pursed his lips; he wanted it. 

Kageyama had first touched a piccolo in his second year of highschool. The conductor handed it to him, and told him to play. His highschool band director was a single man in his sixties that had spent the last ten years of his life jobless and living in his mother's basement, so Kageyama didn't really trust his judgement. But he played anyways because Kageyama was a good kid or whatever. 

And he loved the damn thing. 

Everyone else in his section had trouble even getting a note out of it. They said the keys were too small, too close together. But Kageyama was classically trained on the piano during that time. The keys weren't an issue, and for some reason neither was the surplus of air needed to play it. Quickly, Kageyama played a B flat scale and handed it back to the conductor, unaware of what he'd just done.

The next day, Kageyama played the piccolo instead of the flute in band class.

He shook his head at himself though. Kageyama had only brought enough money for a music book. Plus he had to save up to get another good open-holed flute since Tsukishima and Oikawa fucked up his last one. 

They had thrown a party.

In their apartment.

Without telling him.

He'd left his flute open on the couch when he went out for dinner. The event lasted longer than anticipated when he ran into some kid from his class. They chatted, they ate, and soon it was almost two in the morning and Kageyama had to walk home because he'd missed the last subway. By the time he actually managed to unlock his door it was almost three and he was starting to get very irritated. It was a feeling that quickly tripled in size when he saw Oikawa passed out on the floor, completely shit-faced drunk. Tsukishima was using him as a foot stool and Yamaguchi was curled up in his lap with a lampshade on his head (?). Even Iwaizumi, the only responsible one out of all of them, was sleeping on the kitchen table.

And his poor six-hundred plus dollar (shit was used too flutes are fucking expensive) Yamaha was no where to be seen. Actually no, that was a lie. The foot joint was laying on the coffee table, most of the keys ripped off. Pieces of his case and folder were strewn about the rest of the apartment, but the rest of Kageyama's precious, expensive, professional open-holed flute was completely gone.

Just thinking of the incident made him cringe.

Kageyama quickly made his purchases and speed-walked out before he could scare away the shopkeeper with the grimace on his face.

* * *

It had taken him all week, but Kageyama finally managed to pen down the masterpiece that he'd improv-ed out. That kind of thing always took him longer since he wasn't gifted with perfect pitch (like Tsukishima) or neat handwriting (also like Tsukishima).

Fucking Tsukishima.

Every half-a-second Kageyama would be forced to stop the recording and fiddle around with his instrument until something resembling the right note came out. Then he'd have to figure out which of the tiny lines the note was and make a little circle on it. After that, he had to go through it again to put in bars and rhythm markings. And he still didn't know what key it was in. Or what time signature. Kageyama didn't even _know_ how bars worked. But it was beautiful and he loved it.

He was on his way downtown again, but this time he turned into the street that held all the restaurants right before he hit it. Kageyama walked all the way to the end of the line until he was completely obscured by the shadow of a large bridge. Then he turned and walked up the steps into a large, stone building.

It was abandoned, though apparently the restaurant it used to house held good food. There was a stage and everything for performances, the one that Kageyama was currently making his way to. Now it was just a run-down old thing that a family of cats lived in. Kageyama reached down to pet one of them, the black one. There were five of them and they reminded him a lot of the dumbass room-mates he had to deal with, so he named them as such. The tawny one that didn't move much was Tsukki, and the darker calico one that was always crawling all over him was Yamaguchi. The black one he had just petted was Iwaizumi and Oikawa, the show-offy pale grey one...

...was currently where?

It confused Kageyama that Oikawa wasn't with his family, but he decided not to dwell on it. There was one more, a dark orangey one that he didn't see too often. When he did, it just walked around, threading itself between his legs. He didn't have a name for that one.

Kageyama ignored Oikawa's lack of presence and removed his flute from around his neck. It was his old Alpine, the first flute he'd ever gotten. It was the one with the strap. He unzipped the top and started assembling his apparently shitty instrument.

Kageyama had been shocked when he first learned it, but now he'd basically mellowed out the to idea. He was looking for good flutes for his first year of college. His first professional flute, he thought. Kageyama was actualy kind of excited about it. 

Somewhere in his search though, he learned that Alpine flutes (as in the only one he owned at the time) were absolute shit. They were-- he learned-- 'not recommended for use' at best and 'best suited for light-saber fights' at worst. He was mortified at the prospect and once he'd bought his Capital Edition Jupiter he'd actively refused to use his Alpine.

Whatever, Kageyama thought, playing a quick scale to check if he was in tune. What's so bad about Alpine's anyway? Sure they get fingerprints easy, but they had good tone quality and hardly ever broke. They were easy to clean and relatively easy to play, and best of all the cases came with a strap so he could use his hands for something else while carrying his flute. For all he cared, his Alpine was his favorite flute of all time.

Kageyama set up his stand quickly and started to play.

* * *

Hinata Shouyou was done. He was so done.

No wait, done is when you've typed out the same paper three times because you forgot to save, done is when people on the internet were being so stupid that he was surprised that the human race has survived thus far. Done is what the teacher feels when you forget to sleep for three days and crash four times during class. He wasn't  _quite_  done. He was just fed up.

The same random girl walks up for what seems like the hundredth time and asks YET AGAIN for him to cancel her order in favor of a different one and Hinata just about lost his shit. He would've flipped the table if the table wasn't a counter and attached to the floor. 

Because Tuesday mornings were supposed to be the quiet shift. Typically the quite shift was completely unbearable for everyone except maybe Suga or Kenma and usually Hinata would've thrown himself out the window within the first hour but this huge test was coming up and he wanted to fucking study--

So he asked to switch shifts with Kenma. He actively chose to wake up at seven and pedal his way down to the cafe just so he could study and make money at the same time (it was supposed to be foolproof) but then this girl and her friends had to waltz in and ruin his perfect plan.

Great. Just great.

He finished putting out a set of teabags and instant coffee on the shelf in front of him and picked up the now empty box and the girl fucking walked up to him and he swore to god that if she tried to change her order again he was going to throw the box at someone-- 

She walked past him and he breathed a sigh of relief. Hinata walked up to the counter and threw the box behind it because fuck if he knew where to put that thing. Luckily for him the group left not long after and he was left to study in peace.

\--

Reasons I should be studying:

1: youre gonna fail so hard man fuck

2:  ~~it's the right thing to do~~  FUCK

3:  _GODDAMN IM GONNA FAIL_

 

Reasons to not be studying:

1: THERE ARE NONE YOU PIECE OF SHIT

2: _**FUCK EVERYTHING**_

_\--_

Hinata's brain outright just refused to study. He read sentences and then by the time he finished the sentence he forgot what the first half read so he'd have to reread it and the cycle never ended. He put his face down on the book and lamented his boredom.

The reign of King Henry the Sixteenth ended in fuck this I don't care and his subjects did jack shit I wanna go home.

He was going to fail and he knew it too.

Finally after what seemed like years of utter nothingness the clock struck three and Hinata's shift was over. He was tired and sore and he just wanted some pizza. And maybe a nap. It really wasn't too much to ask. But goddamn if the universe was going to listen to his needs. Besides, he had a duty to pay to Kenma, the pudding-headed friend that he was supposed to play audience to in about ten minutes. 

 _Meet me in that old building place with the cats after your shift is over_. Hinata stifled a yawn and wondered why he never just stole a cup of coffee for himself on the longer shifts. Its not like Suga would mind and Kenma certainly wouldn't have cared either. But he didn't and he was regretting it.

Eventually the outline of the building came into view and Hinata was surprised by the view of his friend sitting by the entrance. One of the cats sat in his lap, the dawn-grey one, what had Kenma named it?

"Kuroo," Kenma mumbled as if reading Hinata's thoughts.

"Why'd you name it that?" Kenma shrugged and brushed his multi-shaded hair out of his face.

"He reminds me of Kuroo," Hinata didn't press on the matter.

"Shouldn't you be inside setting up?" He asked. Kenma shrugged again.

"Someone's in there." Hinata was confused but when quiet had settled over the two of them he realized that he could hear the faint outlines of song emanating from the insides of the abandoned restaurant.  _Weird_ , he thought.  _I didn't think anyone else knew about this place._  

The instrument was light and sweet, like that one song that his little sister liked to play when she was warming up. _Is it a violin too? No, it's one of the band instruments. The blowy ones._  Hinata was an art major. Fuck if he knew anything about instruments. Kenma stood up and Kuroo fell out of his lap with a disgruntled yowl. He picked up the handle of his clarinet case and started to walk away.

"H-hey!" Hinata yelled after him, effectively stopping him in his tracks. "Where're you going?"

"Home," Kenma said passively. "It's fine. I can ask Yamaguchi for tips instead." Yamaguchi. Hinata racked his brain for a picture to match the name. Wasn't he that freckly guy in Kenma's section? Hinata decided to stick with that. 

"Oh... okay," he said. Kenma waved goodbye and started off in the direction of the subway. Hinata stayed back and decided instead to listen to the floating notes. The sound was shrill but not in an unpleasant way. Like the instrument was demanding to be heard by everyone around. Hinata smiled and walked into the building. He hugged the wall and made sure to stay in the shadows as to not alert the player to his presence.

Now that he was closer Hinata could identify the instrument was a flute.  _Duh_ , he thought.  _That's what Yachi plays, I should've been able to recognize it earlier_. The player however, was most certainly not Yachi.

The man was tall, taller than himself at least (thought it wasn't hard even if he did fill out later in his highschool years he was still on the short end of the spectrum) with deep ebony hair that shone blue under the faint sunlight filtering in through the dirty windows. The same blue as his eyes which flicked and flitted over the staff. Most of the time though, he played with his eyes closed. 

"Wow..." Hinata whispered quietly. The mystery flutist started pacing slowly, moving about the stage with no real destination. Hinata noticed the way that whenever he held out a longer note his back would straighten and he would lift his head slightly. He was regal. He was a king. 

 _"I can't play the flute," he told Yachi. "It's a_ girl's _instrument."_

Except it wasn't, at least not when this man was holding it. When this guy was holding it the flute was a sword ready to pierce through his enemies. It was a cane, one that was used to show off his regal stature, to show how much more power someone had over the others. It was a cannon, used to signal the start of a battle, one that  _he_  would win. He flicked the hair out of his eyes with a tilt of the head and seemed to look right at Hinata and Hinata swears that his heart stopped right in that moment.

 _Fuck_ , he realized.  _This guy is fucking hot._

He was so lost in his thoughts (those EYES) that he didn't even notice when the song stopped. He didn't notice when he packed up his instrument and slung his bag over his shoulder. He didn't notice when the man started running towards the exit and Hinata certainly didn't notice when he bowled right into him.

Hinata was knocked onto his back and so was the man but he didn't notice because suddenly his face was so close to his and his eyes were staring straight into his and fuck was he so much more attractive up close. 

 _Damn_ , Hinata thought.

Damn.


	2. Are we dating or are we dating

The first thing Kageyama does upon walking into the coffee shop is walk back out again.

Not that he had an issue with the shop (it was actually quite pleasant and it smelled nice) but the shop _keeper_. He stood outside against the wall and took in a few deep breaths. It was that guy.  _That guy_.

_Fuck._

Thinking back on it, Kageyama wasn't too sure why he was so intent on avoiding the guy. He was a friendly kid, short but not abnormally so, with bright orange hair that almost hurt to look at after a while. What was his name again? I don't think we ever exchanged names, Kageyama realized. It made sense in a way. All they did the first time they ran into each other (quite literally, he hopes to forget) was scream. Shorty more in excitement but Kageyama was legitimately pissed off at the kid.

"Oh my god, oh my GOD!" He had been screaming. Kageyama recoiled slightly at the sound and rubbed his backside.

"What?" At first he'd thought that the guy was angry at him (he had run straight into him) but his screams seemed to happy for that.

"That was so good, YOU'RE SO GOOD!" Kageyama blushed unknowingly and Hinata's heart nearly stopped. "You were-- that was-- oh my god you are AMAZING!"

"Um." 

"THAT'S AMAZING YOU KNOW MY LITTLE SISTER PLAYS THE VIOLIN AND SHE'S IN A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA--"

"Um--!"

"AND SHE'S ALWAYS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE FLUTES BEING TOO SOFT OR SOMETHING BUT YOU ARE LITERALLY PERFECT--!"

"UM!!!!" He screams into the other's face. The red-head finally shut up and Kageyama put a hand over his mouth, realizing that he'd unwittingly won a screaming match with someone and the only thing he'd said was  _um._ And now the shorty was staring at him like he was some kind of fucking messiah and he was just standing there with his hand clamped over his face (which totally wasn't turning the exact color of the guy's hair shut up).

It's not like he was planning to say anything else. He'd just wanted the kid to shut up and leave him be.

"Right, uh..." Beautiful. You sir are the most eloquent man ever to exist. Hat's off to you. "So I kind need to go home." Stop staring at me. "Like uh..."

"You do?" Kageyama flinched at how sad the other sounded.

"Um. Um yeah." He pointed at his bare wrist. "Right now."

Right now.

Kageyama exhaled. Whatever, he thought. It wasn't going to kill him.

He re-entered the coffee-shop.

* * *

What is that.

What the fuck is that sound.

What is that sound how do I make it stop.

Kageyama rolled over and saw the little screen of his phone lit up. 

Oh.

Shit.

He groaned and shut off his alarm, glaring at the painfully bright screen. He slid out of bed and started getting ready for school.

Kageyama pedaled down the lane and came to a stop outside of the little shop which he'd been frequenting. He was right, going inside really hadn't killed him. In fact, because of the apparent obsession of the barista (his name was Hinata, he'd learned) with his music he'd been getting free drinks.

It was actually kind of awesome.

The first time Hinata gives him a free drink he thinks it was just a coincidence. The second time Kageyama gets a little suspicious but doesn't really think anything of it. But by the third, fourth, and fifth times he was almost fed-up with the jittery red-head and he swore to GOD that if the guy didn't stop obsessing over him Kageyama was going to end up wanted for murder.

But now they were sort-of-almost friends. So it's better.

* * *

Hinata sat back in his chair and stretched, letting his eyes adjust.

"Tired?" Nishinoya asked him. He rubbed his eyes and thought about how the optometrist said he was going to need glasses at the rate he was going.

"Yeah," he replied, glaring at the canvas. He picked up the brush and made a few more haphazard strokes. "Ugh, my flowers are so gross."

"They really are."

"Oh shut up!" Hinata snapped, looking at his friend in frustration. "And how are  _your_  flowers coming out?"

"They're not flowers." They exchanged bleary-eyes stares and then burst into laughter.

"Man," Hinata starts, "This SUCKS!" Nishinoya rolled his eyes in agreement.

"I know, right? I mean, it's my major, I THINK I know how to paint something like a fucking rose."

"You don't though."

"Neither do you."

Hinata put his brush down on the palette, making sure not to get it dirty on any of the others. He still had a shift to work after classes, but after that he was going to meet Kenma at the abandoned restaurant. He was working on transcribing some song from Legend of Zelda and wanted his input, and there was no way in HELL he was missing that. Besides-- and Hinata will deny to his grave that his heart skipped a beat at the thought-- but there was always the possibility that HE could be there again.

Hinata smiled to himself and Nishinoya stabbed him with a paintbrush.

"Hey!" He yelled. "What the fuck man, you know this shit doesn't wash out!" Nishinoya was lucky it wasn't some shirt that he actually cared about, Hinata thought.

"Quit daydreaming 'bout your hot date and get a move on! The teacher's gonna flip his shit if you don't make some semblance of progress today." He muttered vague and empty death threat while trying to rinse off as much of the paint as he could before it set. So what if he was daydreaming about his hot not-date? He was still getting the work done and Kageyama was the one person that you HAVE to daydream about.

Hinata sat back down and tried to get back to painting his misshapen blobs.

"This is coming out terribly." Nishinoya tried to cover up the giant pink smear on the corner of his canvas. Hinata took a deep breath of paint thinner and linseed oil and let out the loudest groan he could muster.

"I HATE THISSSSSSS!" One of the other students him him in the head with a pencil. Sucks for you. I'm keeping this.

He wondered how Kageyama might react to Hinata giving him the flowers that he was currently painting. Probably with disgust.

He wondered how kageyama might react to Hinata giving him some actually decent flowers.

Probably still with disgust, but that what Hinata liked about him. An abrasive person like that MUST be waiting for his true love to sweep him off his feet. Lucky for him, Hinata once worked as a janitor.

"Oh god," He groaned at his own joke. "I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"Oh god that was terrible. I apologize. I apologize to my whole family for that one."

"Go home Hinata, you're drunk," Nishinoya deadpanned.

* * *

  Kageyama grabs the shirt of the orange-haired barista as he walks towards the door and asks for his name in the least creepy way possible. Needless to say, he fails.

Not that Hinata could hear him over the blood rushing through his ears.

"Sh--Shou--Shouyou H--Hinata," he says, butchering the sentence and Kageyama nods.

"Hello, Hinata. Um... I've noticed you giving me free drinks?" For some reason he couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye. Instead he focuses on the little crow embroidery done on the chest of his apron. Karasu Cafe, it says. How cute.

"Um... yeah?" Hinata anxiously darts his eyes around the room, looking for anything to rest his eyes on, anything but the black haired flutist and his beautiful blue eyes and... and-- fuck! "Do you want me to stop? Or like... do you, uh, mind or something?" Of course he minds! OF COURSE HE FUCKING MINDS HE'S A TALL DARK HANDSOME STRANGER AND YOU'RE A RANDOM ART STUDENT WHO CAN STILL PASS FOR A GRADESCHOOLER WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE-- 

"Well... no, but I almost feel guilty? If that makes any sense." Hinata blushes profusely and Kageyama almost laughs. Adorable! This little highschooler has a crush on me! he thought. Somewhat creepy, but hey, I got like, five free coffees out of it. And he's cute.

"Oh yeah, yeah definitely! I'll stop it was just... uh..." The sentence trails off into space and he doesn't bother meeting the other's curious gaze. Kageyama waited a moment before speaking.

"Well, that's great, I guess." He clears his throat a little before he choked on the cloud of awkwardness surrounding the two of them. "You want to join me or something?" He asks, his tone coming off as just a little bit standoff-ish which is fine, he supposes. It sounds cool, gruff. Bad-boyish and-- holy shit was he actually thinking about this.

Hinata turns as red as his hair and he awkwardly shuffles into the booth, for once thankful for the fact that he was short when their knees don't touch under the table since all of this place's booths are too small and there was literally zero chance that he was going to stay conscious as is. Kageyama just shrugs and twirls a green pencil in his hand before going back to marking a piece of sheet music in front of him.

* * *

Believe or not, that scene was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, if it could be called that. Although it basically meant that they sat in the same booth during Hinata's break (and sometimes during his shift, at least until Suga comes over and puts and hand on his shoulder during which Hinata will go completely white as if he were the scariest thing in the world) listening to Hinata's playlist of art songs. Kageyama usually reads or makes a list of things he has to do or finishes some of his homework but for the most part he sits and observes the small child as he draws.

The 'small child' thought led to another one. "How old are you?" Kageyama asks.

Hinata blinks at him. "Nineteen," he says. "I'm a first year university student."

Kageyama nearly spits out his coffee. "You--your'e what?"

Hinata narrows his eyes and the murderous glint in them makes Kageyama regret drinking all that coffee. "Nineteen. A first-year university student." His eyes narrow further and for some reason Kageyama fears for his life. "Why?"

"J-just curious," he says in response. Because you look like you're fourteen god-damnit! Though he chose to omit the last part. "Cause you're in the same year as me, no reason."

"Really?" he asks, the murderous gleam replaced with one of ecstatic glee. "Oh wow! That's so cool! Hey, you go to the same college as me?" He asks, closing up his sketchbook. Kageyama internally curses himself for not sneaking a peek when he could, the other was oddly secretive about his little book of drawings.

"I guess. It's the one down the street, right?"

"The one down the street!" Hinata laughs. "You forgot the name of your own school?"

"No! Dumb ass!"

* * *

They were in the middle of listening once again to Hinata's iPod and Kageyama was in the midst of wondering which came first, the music or the misery (the music and the misery came at the same time, he decides, because the music was college and the misery was also college) when Hinata drops the question.

"So like... you wanna go out or..." Kageyama does a double-take and Hinata quickly corrects himself. "N--n--n--not--not like a date or anything! Just, you know!" He jerks a thumb at the window next to them. "Out."

"Out as in out of the coffee shop?"

"Yeah that's it!" His smile is impossibly big and Kageyama can't bring himself to say no.

On their first date the entire time Hinata was busy stressing to hell and back that they weren't on a date but Kageyama wasn't stupid (that's a lie though and they both knew it) and for once he wasn't too dense to read the situation and yes. They were most certainly on a date. And surprisingly enough he wasn't the blushing stuttering mess which was surprising in itself.

Kageyama had all of one boyfriend in his nineteen years of existence and it ended in a broken nose (Oikawa's to be exact) and a broken door (which was both of their's and to this day Kageyama does not understand what Oikawa was thinking when he broke down the front door to a house that both of them lived in). Oikawa got another boyfriend but Kageyama boiled in half-hearted anger that could've been more accurately described as boredom until he became the attractive loser he was today.

"Whatever," he sighs. "I'll marry my flute."

"What?"

"Uh... nothing."


	3. Everyone's drunk (and honestly it's kind of hilarious)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata spaces out thinking about how hot Kags is but Kags spaces out thinking of how scary Hinata is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit so um yeah there is an update at the end of this after what was originally chapter five um i fucked up real bad

"IT'S BROWN! EVERYTHING I DO OR SAY IS BROWN!" It took Hinata a surprising amount of time to realize that Nishinoya was talking considering that he _wasn't_  talking he was screaming and of all things  _he was screaming about the goddamned color brown._ He yawned and shot a judgmental glare in his direction before accidentally stabbing himself in the eye with the business end of his paint brush while trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Instead of bothering to try and wash it off he just left it as is, deciding to deal with the problem later in the bath. It's not like he could actually tell the difference between the grey-orange color and his actual eyelashes anyways, so it didn't actually matter in the slightest. Meanwhile, Nishinoya has somehow spent the last twenty minutes screaming about the color brown. Hinata raised an eyebrow at him like  _okay I knew you were insane before but this is taking it to a whole new level_  but Nishinoya's only response was to raise his palms up like he was pleading with his red-headed kouhai to listen to his incessant babblings, which he did in the end.

"What. The fuck."

"It's all brown, Shouyou! My paintbrush is brown! My background is brown! My hands are  _brown_  from all the  _brown_  paint all over my  _brown_  palette! EVEN THE GODDAMN POT IS BROWN, SHOUYOU!"

"The pot  _is_  brown, Noya."

"It's not just that though!" He says, pointing his notably  _brown_  paintbrush at the  _brown_  smudge on Hinata's face. "This chair is brown! Our table is brown! My fucking easel is brown! THE EASEL IS BROWN, SHOUYOU. THE EASEL."

"The easel is brown because its made of wood,  Noya."

"THAT'S RIGHT! WOOD IS BROWN, SHOUYOU!"

"WOOD IS BROWN BECAUSE TREES ARE BROWN AND-- okay I'm not arguing with you on this." He carefully arranges his paintbrushes in the space between his palette and the edge of the table before slowly extracting himself from the chair in order to not knock over the canvas. "I'm making coffee." And he'll be damned if his mood didn't lighten just a bit from the look on Noya's face. "Also, your paintbrush is only brown because you refuse to clean the paints off as you switch from color to color."

"Shouyou, you work at a  _Cafe_  as a  _barista_ , as in the  _guy who makes the coffee_  and its two _in the morning_ ** _how have you not made coffee yet_** ," Nishinoya complained as they ascended the basment stairs to get to his kitchen, completely disregarding his previous comment.

"I think the better question is how we managed to argue over the fucking color you picked for our assignment for the past twenty minutes." Ah yes, their assignment. Pick a color! Paint something random, it doesn't matter! Oh, but you can only use _that **one**  color_, isn't that nice? I'll grade you on quality, so be prepared! "Why you picked the color brown is beyond me."

"Like I said, Shou, brown is a pretty rare color for these types of assignments! If we manage to produce something good then the teacher'll definitely give us points for creativity! And--"

"I'm not sure if you've noticed, Noya, but there are a couple steps between blank canvas and super cleVER AND CREATIVE PIECE DONE COMPLETELY IN ONE COLOR!" Hinata finishes, jamming the spoon he was using to scoop some instant coffee mix into two mugs back into its tin container. "AND THEY'RE KIND OF DIFFICULT STEPS TO FOLLOW." Somehow they managed to get two semi-decent cups of coffee together without further mention on the topic. Hinata leaned against the counter-top, unrolling his overly-large shirt sleeves back down past his fingertips to avoid burning his fingertips on the black ceramic mug. He rested the rim of the cup against his lip and blew across the surface in an attempt to cool it before draining the whole thing in one go. "You know, I read about a guy online who used to brew his coffee with monster," he remarked after the bitter liquid failed to wake him up in any way and if anything just worsened his mood.

"It would kill you, Shouyou."

"Yeah, I know but--"

"Death, Shouyou. You would die." Hinata sighs instead of pressing the topic and instead focuses on what classes he had in the morning, whether or not he should take a bath before said classes or just deal with the orange-brown smudge on his face for the rest of the next day, whether or not he should go home that night in the first place since he and Noya were clearly far from finished but was there even any point in staying since they'd already passed the point of no return they argued for twenty minutes over the color brown _they might as well have been drunk_ , but--

"Shouyou."

"Hmm?"

"The coffee is brown."

"I'm going home, Noya."

* * *

 

The next morning Hinata Shouyou might as well have been dead on his feet and as much as he didn't want to admit it the whole 'brewing coffee with monster' thing was sounding far too appealing for the time being. He rolled out of bed and tried to brush his teeth without falling asleep again and somehow managed to lace up his sneakers before remembering to put on pants. He basically slept his way through an obligatory seminar on Objects Through History or something fuck if he knew or cared and then he fell down the last five stairs on the staircase, much to the displeasure of all the condescending upperclassmen who tripped over him. 

After lunch he had one more class to attend which he managed to be slightly more awake for meaning that he actually realized that he was  _at_  college which is a stage that he didn't even  _get_  to most days. He tugged at the sleeves of his giant hoodie which probably didn't even belong to him, regretting the fact that he put it on in the first place since it just seemed to make him even sleepier.

And then class was over. Or it had been fifteen minutes ago but he'd just been sitting there spacing out and drawing the concerned gazes of a lot more people than he would've been comfortable with. He was just about to close up his notebook, void of any notes save for a doodle of a certain tall, dark, and handsome item that he'd recently been hanging out with that he didn't even remember doing when his cellphone vibrated against the table, scaring him. He checked the caller ID and what do you know! It's just the tall, dark, handsome item in question. Hinata decides that he needs more sleep when he can't even muster the energy to be excited that Kageyama was calling him. He clears his throat before picking up.

"Hey Kags, what's up."

"You sound like you're dead."

"I am dead."

"What happened?" It was a different voice this time.

"Kenma?" Hinata asks. He hears a small sound of confirmation.

"Yeah, but seriously what happened Shouyou?"

"Ugh I don't know." He rubs at his hair in attempt to smooth it down but instead he somehow makes it stick up even more. "I was working on a project at Noya's house last night and around one in the morning he just started  _screaming_  about the color brown and how everything was brown or something and brewing coffee with monster I don't know we were probably drunk." He hears an abnormally long pause and he fears that he's chased them both away with his awful recount of the night previous' occurrances. Eventually it's Kenma who speaks first.

"Coffee with monster, huh? Sounds like something we should add to the menu. Like the 'College-Student-Special' or something."

"Kenma we'd be wanted for murder within a week." He hears a snort and raises and eyebrow at the phone. "Kags... are you laughing?" The snorts grow louder and more frequent until it was plainly obvious that he found this hilarious and Hinata wasn't sure if he wanted to kill him or kiss him.  _Both would be acceptable in this situation_ , he finally decides. One thing leads to the next and somehow Hinata ends up outside of the cafe despite the fact that he didn't even  _have_  a shift that day and he wanted nothing more in the world than a nap and a pizza and maybe Kageyama as a boyfried but no. He was going to the cafe.

Whoopty-doo, Hinata thinks, at least Kags and Kenma'll be there to keep me company. The bell above the door dings to signal his arrival and his two friends look at him simultaneously. 

"Hinata," Kageyama says. Kenma finishes for him.

"The counter is brown."

Hinata doesn't answer and instead just walks out the fucking door.

* * *

 

 The car bumps into Hinata as he's crossing the street and Nishinoya nearly pisses himself laughing. The term 'bumped' is used because that is literally what happened. The car bumped into Hinata's hip as it was trying to parallel park and knocked him a few feet to the side. He landed on his forearms, spilling the contents of a plastic bag from the art store all over the sidewalk and Nishiya was on all fours trying to keep himself from collapsing in a fit of laughter. Tanaka pauses for a moment to make sure that Hinata wasn't dead before joining in.

"Um... you guys...?" Asahi looks between the flurry of papers and pencils Hinata was attempting to gather and the dynamic duo crying on the sidewalk and quite frankly he wasn't quite sure which problem he should address first. The four of them went out, Nishinoya and Hinata for supplies and Tanaka and Asahi to keep them company (plus with the two of them there was less chance of them getting mugged on the subway) and everything was going great at least until Hinata got hit by a car.

Hinata wipes the sand and gravel out of the little cuts on his hands and curses. He continues cursing as he gathers his materials and its around the time that he finishes that he realizes that Kageyama was staring at him through the window of the music store across the street. Hinata's face turns red but it was already red from all the rage boiling over inside of him at the fucking driver of that goddamned car so he didn't worry about anyone noticing. He stands and tries to wipe the dirt and blood off himself before smiling and waving at him.

He just got backed into by a car and he's still smiling and cheery? Kageyama snorts so loudly in attempt to muffle his laughter that it hurts. He walks outside of the store and upon making sure there were no first-time drivers doing a bad parking job he quickly crossed the street to greet him. "Y-you good?" He asks, stuttering in order to mask the amusement that the whole ordeal provided him with.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Hinata replies smiling.  _No I'm not fine I'm fucking pissed who the hell is so bad at driving that they knocked down a student trying to park their damn vehicle--_  "Just a few bruises is all."

"Y-yeah!" Tanaka gasps out between giggles and snorts.

"Yeah Shouyou was so small the driver didn't even notice he hit him!" Nishinoya screams in response. Suddenly the two of them both stop and narrow their eyes in suspicion.

"Who are you to my precious kouhai?"

"Don't think I've ever seen your ugly face around here before." Asahi waved his hands in vain attempt to calm them down. 

"Um... you guys it's okay he's probably just a friend from class or something!"

"Bullshit! I share 3/4 of my classes with Shouyou, and I haven't seen this guy around the art department."

"That's because he's a music student, Noya," Hinata was shoved behind his caretakers as if they were trying to act as a human shield to protect him from the threat that was Kageyama Tobio. Nishinoya and Tanaka both gasp in mock surprise.

"A music student?"

"A music student!"

"I've never seen one before!" Hinata sighs in irritation instead of trying to argue with the two of them and Asahi decides to join him. He pushes in front of the two so he could look at Kageyama which he did so enjoy doing.

"I wouldn't worry about it, guys, he's not a threat or anything. I mean he plays the flute--"

"Excuse me--?"

"-- so he's no big deal."

"Excuse me, I could kick your ass if I wanted to."

"Yeah right, I'd like to see you try!"

"Well!" Kageyama huffs. "If we were drowning at least I'd last longer than you!" 

"IS THAT A THREAT?"

"NO IT'S A FACT!"

And on and on it went.

* * *

"Kags?" Hinata shifted awkwardly under Kageyama's gaze. These days he'd gotten used to how attractive his friend (boyfriend? He didn't think they'd made it  _quite_  that far yet) was such that they could have a decent conversation occasionally and hang out every so often but when he stood staring like that he couldn't help but notice how blue those eyes were or how his black hair somehow even managed to make the shape of his head look hot and--

Hinata tugged at the edges of the beanie he was using to hide his own orange bed-head. "Kags what's up you're freaking me out."

"Hmm?" Hinata walked up and stood on his tippy-toes in an attempt to have a staring contest with with the other but instead Kageyama just freaks out at the close proximity and tells  _him_  to stop staring.

"Whatever," Hinata laughs and they start to walk. It was the late afternoon and the sun shined into his eyes between the holes in the leaves so he makes Kageyama walk next to him to block it out (C'mon Kags, it's not like you're gonna get backed into by a parallel parker or anything) and also so that he could observe the way the light hit the side of his face and made his eyes sparkle and his hair shine and--

"Jesus Christ," Hinata says in awe, though for once it wasn't directed at his companion. "Kags? Can I have your phone?"

"What no--"

"PLEASE KAGS I LEFT MINE AT HOME LET ME TAKE A PICTURE." Kageyama handed over his phone without further argument. He just didn't want to keep going on and on about some mundane topic like they had the other day. It's not like the tiny artist that still had remnants of color smudged on his face from the night before wearing the world's biggest flannel (which Hinata had actually worn to bed the night before and was hoping Kageyama wouldn't notice) and the cute beanie scared him. No not at all.

Those eyes though. Those eyes freaked him out sometimes and he wasn't afraid to admit because even Kenma said that his eyes got scary sometimes.

"Kags!" Hinata screamed. "IS. THIS. A. GOOD. PICTURE???" He thrusts the phone into the other's face and Kageyama has to blink a few times before he realizes what he's looking at. It was a picture of the sky, but it was also a picture of a raging fire. The delicate pinks and blues stood out in sharp contrast against the angry red outlining the skyline. Honestly, he wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed it himself.

"I don't know."

"Does it look nice?"

"I don't know."

"Should I take it again?"

"I don't know. I'm not really an art person." Hinata retracted his hand at stared worriedly at the screen. "Why do you care so much anyways?" Hinata sighed and returned the phone.

"Because I'm going to paint it one day."

"One day?"  _You're an art student, why not do it now?_

"Yeah." Hinata turned to him and the fire in his eyes made Kageyama rethink anything he'd ever thought about the ginger's eyes ever. "I've always wanted to do a large scale project like that. I'm gonna paint the walls just like this one day. The walls and the ceiling and the floor. I'm gonna do it all." He smiles to himself as if the thought alone sent shivers down his spine. "But I can't do it right now since I live in an apartment."

Kageyama Tobio was never a very outgoing guy. He was abrasive, rude, and offended people without even meaning to, so anyone who knew him in highschool would've had a hernia if they were around to hear what he said next.

"You know, I've never seen your paintings, but if you want to can do it in my room."

* * *

"Huh? So you're the pipsqueak that's got Kageyama all distracted lately?" Kags's blonde giant of a roommate bends down as jeers at him. "I thought you'd be taller." And although Hinata was never one to back down from a fight he wanted to make a good first impression on his potential boyfriend's roommates so he bit back the words 'go back to SNK you titan' and just smiled and laughed as if his words were the funniest things he'd ever heard.

"Tsukki, that's mean." The boy cowering behind him speaks up. "Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Yamaguchi. You're Kenma's friend, right? I'm in the clarinet section with him, tell him he's really good for me!" Hinata gasps in surprise.

"Woah, you know Kenma! That's so cool he's like my best friend!" They smiled and laughed at each other and Tsukishima blushed at how cute they honestly were. "You guys have such a nice place, I wish I could live in a set-up like this!" _Although I basically live in Noya's basement art-studio as is,_  he omits.

Kageyama and his four roommates lived in a condo just off the south side of campus. It had four stories but each floor only had the space for one room and a staircase. Kageyama lived on the highest floor, and the others shared rooms, Hinata later learned.  Their garage was converted into a recording studio since only one of them had a drivers license (and even less people than that actually owned a car) which was almost as cool as Noya's art studio but not quite.

"If you're wondering why the front door keeps getting stuck it's because Oikawa broke it last year," Kageyama said. Oikawa gives him this look like  _I can't believe you said that_ but Kageyama doesn't seem to notice.

"Tobio--!"

"And if you're wondering why there's a hole in the wall right there," The titan points at the landing behind him "it's because Oikawa thought it'd be a good idea to sled down the stairs on a bean-bag chair."

"Hey--!"

"If you look closely you can still see the scar on his forehead."

"Hajime-chan!" Oikawa cries, shaking his black-haired roommate by the shoulders. "You shouldn't be telling Tobio's friend those things! You're ruining his first impression of me!" _You're doing that yourself,_  Hinata thinks to himself. He swallows any other questions he may have had about the odd group (he did that with his face?!) and follows Kageyama up the stairs to his dwelling.

"Hey Kags?" He asks before following his companion into the room. "You sure it's okay for me to do this?" 

"Of course it is you idiot don't be stupid." He ushers him into the room.

Hinata looks at the walls and furniture, mapping out where to put what and drawing a picture of what the room was going to look like  _after_  this little endevor in his mind. "So... how is it?" Hinata makes a few noises as if he were actually considering the question.

"Well... it certainly is a room."

"No shit, Sherlock, what do you think of the room." Hinata turns towards Kageyama and smiles.

"It's great Kags, just one thing." He rushes back down the stairs, nearly tripping and making an identical hole in the wall right next to the original. He reaches the living room again and somehow the other four were still arguing (the three mainly as Yamaguchi mainly stayed behind Tsukki's back and nodded in time with his comments) so Hinata decides to break them up by coughing twice. "So," he says with a smile. "Which of you wants to help Kags clear out the furniture from his room?"


	4. Oh just kiss already

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a cup of eggnog and an internet connection and i JUST WANT TO WRITE FOR SOME REASON  
> a/n i wrote this draft like a month ago and completely forgot about it sorry

"Oikawa, no--"

"OIKAWA YESSS!!" Is Kageyama's only heads-up before the sound of Oikawa's guitar rips through all four stories of the condo from his room on the second floor at three in the morning. He sits bolt up, ready to kill and he would've fallen off the bed if the bed wasn't propped up in his closet to avoid Hinata getting paint on it. Luckily, he was sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket with his pillow thrown across the room. Hinata lay a ways off from him in a similar predicament. He slept in the same large flannel that he'd worn to the place and little else. He managed to position himself in a way that meant that all that was visible of his upper body was a tuft of neon orange sticking out of a small hole at the top of his head, but it left the majority of the ginger's legs uncovered. _It's kind of sexy,_ he thinks, _or so it would be if Hinata's top half didn't look like a navy blue burrito_.

Kageyama nearly lets the other boy's pale and somewhat hot legs distract him before a second riff tears through the air and he barrels out the door and down the stairs with murder in his eyes.

"GODDAMNIT OIKAWA I DON'T EVEN HAVE CLASSES TODAY!"

The hours of one to five in the afternoon are the hours when Hinata works on painting the room the most. He would play Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco songs and sing along at the top of his lungs, matching the lyrics word for word and doing a little dance to match which was not only the cutest thing in the world and also the most amusing and Tsukishima took video upon video of it to use as blackmail later.

And then he'd work again at seven, this time with headphones since those were the times that all the others practiced as well. Occasionally he'd ask for Kageyama to help him fill in the areas that he couldn't reach on his own, which Kageyama would be more than happy to do (even if they eventually get a ladder for the shorter one to sit on).

And then there were the times from midnight on when he'd just keep painting and painting, breathing fast and flushed pink as if he had a fever. He'd throw colors right on the wall with reckless abandon and hastily start spreading it and blending it into the original beige coloring. He moved so quickly that Kageyama wondered if he could even see the colors he was haphazardly dipping his paintbrush into. "You okay?" Kageyama would ask because if you saw him in that state you would honestly believe that he had lost his mind. Any response given, at least when there was one, was usually a grunt of some sort or a one-syllable answer. Anyone who'd ever had a conversation with the guy would be worried about the quiet air of panic in the room.

"It's the 'Manic Mode,'" Hinata explains. "It's when everything is open and you can't you anything wrong and your mind races too quickly for your body to keep up with. It's necessary," he says, "for me to complete a good piece. Like, a _really_ good one. With Manic Mode I can get all the shit out of the way really quickly without worrying about how it looks and stuff because I don't have the _time_ to-- you get it?" Kageyama shook his head yes even though he didn't.

* * *

 "Hasn't Pipsqueak been really quiet up there?"

"Hmm?" Oikawa looks at the ceiling, still managing to get food on his fork and shovel it into his mouth despite not even looking at the plate. It was one of the few days in the month where none of the five had somewhere to be first thing in the morning, so they were having breakfast lovingly prepared by Yamaguchi aka the only one of them who knew what an oven was. "Well--munch munch-- I guess just a bit-- munch."

"Yeah! Usually by now Hinata's singing and stuff by now." Their chef says, pouring himself more juice at the counter.

"Maybe he fell off the ladder and died!" Tsukishima jokes but Kageyama nearly spits out his cereal. _What if he did though?! What if Hinata Shouyou, cute barista art-student, was lying dead on the floor of his room?! WHAT IF IT HAPPENED?! **HE HAS SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!!!!!**_

In the future Kageyama will delete all memory of these thoughts from his mind.

"I-I'm gonna bring him some food," he says as an excuse to go check on him.

"Pfft, okay, hurry back," Tsukishima snickers and Kageyama wouldn've beaten up the guy with his own keyboard but he had more pressing concerns at the moment so he just trips up the stairs instead. "Hina...ta?" He's greeted by the sight of his his friend sitting at the the vertex of the ladder. One of his knees is drawn up far enough that he can rest his chin on it and there were streaks on paint on his shin from where he honed the point of his paintbrush occasionally. A pair of glasses that Kageyama had never seen before rests precariously on the edge of his nose and his earbuds are in, blasting punk-rock so loudly that Kageyama could hear muffled Fall Out Boy from where he was standing.

A fine-tipped brush was balanced in his steady fingers, which Hinata was using to detail tiny marks of shadow on a cloud. Hinata was completely oblivious to Kageyama's presence (and was probably going to go deaf at the rate he was going but) and just continued painting in complete silence. 

As bubbly as the boy usually was, when he really got in the zone he was oddly quiet.

Kageyama stood in the doorway and appreciated the calm in the room sharply contrasting against the 'Manic Mode' of the night previous and it's at this point when a glass of chocolate milk decides to slide off the edge of the plate and shatter all over the floor.

And _then_ Hinata falls off the ladder. But don't worry, he doesn't die or anything.

Kageyama's heart nearly does, though.

* * *

 "HELL YEAH!!!!!!" Every resident of the house simultaneously turns to look at the top floor of the estate. "HELL. MOTHERFUCKING. YESSSSS!!!!!" There's a thump and a curse but then there's jumping and screaming at a level that could only belong to one Hinata Shouyou. The originally mostly-coherent words suddenly changed in pitch and the loud screams became shrieks of terror (or so it seemed) that were reminiscent of the boy's little sister. It only takes a moment for the door to be thrown open by a very disgruntled and very concerned Kageyama Tobio.

"Hinata?!" He shouts, his expression a mixture of annoyance and confusion, but mainly concern which quickly morphs into one of pure annoyance when Hinata turns around with the widest smile in existence across his face. "What the hell--?" Except he doesn't get to finish because the shorty tackles him to the ground and sits on his chest, still screaming like a madman.

"LOOK AT THIS SHIT, KAGS! LOOK. AT. THIS. SHIT!" He gets up and points at the wall. "Look at how GOOD this is I've never done something like it before holy SHIT ISN'T IT GREAT???" Kageyama regards the wall, somehow ignoring the other long enough to get a good look at the wall.

There was only paint in the top left corner so far, but it was done up in the most beautiful golden hues he'd ever seen. Delicate clouds and airplane trails were shaded in as if done by a professional hand (which as far as Kageyama cared it was) but with flair that was purely the little ball of sunshine that was currently calling his friend, no doubt to bother him as much as he was bothering the others.

"Nishinoya-senpai!!!" Hinata shouts into the receiver once he picks up. "Senpai, I did it!!!"

"Senpai? Wow it's been a while since you called me that, what's the special occasion--?"

"I FUCKING DID IT SENPAI! Kags is here, tell him, Kags."

"Uh..." Kageyama trails off, unsure of what to say. "It... It looks how music feels," he finally decides to say as if it made any sense to anyone other than himself.

It seemed to make Hinata happy enough though as he beams at the flutist and screams into the phone, "Hear that? It looks how music feels, Noya!"

"What the fuck does that even mean--"

"HOW MUSIC FEELS, NOYA!" On the other side of the line Nishinoya Yuu wonders if this is cosmic payback for the whole 'brown' catastrophe. 

Hinata makes coffee and Oikawa drinks all of it in frustration over his homework, but Hinata just smiles and laughs and makes more and none of them sleep that night due to excitement bleed over and it's great.

The next morning Kageyama oversleeps, misses the bus, runs through a thunderstorm to get to class only to realize that he forgot his music at home, and gets yelled at for sleeping during class all before Hinata, his impromptu roommate currenly passed out on the floor of his bedroom, even wakes up. By the time he gets home though, Hinata's already at work, so Kageyama just sets up in the center o his room where his bed used to be and practices a piece of shit song that they'd received that day. He hears Yamaguchi doing the same and his heart goes out to him for trying so hard even though he wasn't even in the first row. He works through the song slowly, only stopping to swear and stomp his feet on the floor to silence what he believed was Tsukishima stomping on the ceiling (tune damn it you're making my ears bleed!).

Hinata eventually arrives home (home? why would he think of _his_ house as Hinata's home as well?) and he hears he and his classmate's excited screaming over Skype from the first floor. Somewhere is the house Iwaizumi and Oikawa start to jab at each other again but all Kageyama can think about is how strangely perfect this whole thing was.

And then he trips on his way down the stairs and everything kind of just goes to shit.

* * *

Kageyama learns that Hinata needs glasses and Hinata learns that Kageyama's hair is hilarious first thing in the morning.

The two of them moved the bed out of the closet since at the speed the project was moving at they were going to be sleeping on the floor until they were forty and it only took way too much time and 6 flattened toes (Hinata's on accident and Kageyama's as revenge) until the bed is properly in place again.

On the first night back in his cushy bed he can't seem to get to sleep for some reason. _It's odd_ , he thinks. _I slept on the floor for like the past month just fine but and now I've returned to the good life and I can't sleep_. It takes him until nearly midnight for him to determine the reason: The guilt was eating him alive. Here he was, living the 'good life' in his comfortable, warm bed (the guy sleeps with like four blankets wtf) meanwhile Hinata was curled up into a blanket-burrito on the floor with like one blanket and maybe a pillow if it hadn't slid out from under his head yet.

He wasn't sure quite how to go about remedying the situation so he laid there in a puddle of his own shame until he pulled all four blankets and pillows off his bed and lay down next to Hinata instead.

Hinata never really knew what Kageyama looked like before he brushed his teeth and hair and made himself presentable, at least not until Noya calls him at five the next morning purely just to piss him off (or so it seemed) asking him to make coffee for him since he'd just finished an all-nighter. Usually he'd be pissed to hell and back, but once Hinata caught sight of Kags's hair he nearly cried.

Kageyama was the lightest sleeper in the world (which was ironic considering Natsu once thought Hinata was dead since he just wouldn't wake up) so the moment the red-head's phone goes off his eyes fly open like the world was ending. 

"The hell d'you want...?" He hears the sleep-slurred words of his un-official roommate on the phone and sits up and watches in drowsy amusement at Hinata paws at the desk behind him looking for a pair of thick rimmed glasses. More annoyed grumbling occurs that Kageyama barely hears as he tries to rub the blurriness out of his eyes, and he can only deduce by the muffled voice that it was the obnoxious upper classman that he bumped into that one time that Hinata was 'bumped into' by a car. The thought, while irritating, did not fail to make him snicker just a little bit.

Hinata adjusts his glasses and freezes, permanently burning the image of Kageyama's hair sticking up on one side like a fucking hurricane had passed through and just starts laughing.

Two showers and an awkward toast experience later (don't ask) Kageyama's standing in the corner chugging a Monster like it's his lifeline while Hinata sits on top of the ladder like usual doing the same.

"I never knew you wore glasses," Kageyama mused, throwing his head back and taking another huge gulp.

"Hmm..." Hinata says. "I dunno, I kinda just ruined my eyes completely from painting and drawing in the dark." He takes them off and squints at the clock above Kageyama's head to prove his point. "Like, it may be six in the morning or whatever time it really is but to me it's just half-past white blob." Kageyama laughs and Hinata gets testy in mock offense. "Well I'm _so_  glad that my crippling disability makes you so happy." His attempt at guilt tripping his taller companion fails however when he doesn't make it through the word 'disability' without giggling in the middle. Which only makes Kageyama laugh more.

"I don't know, but at the rate you're going you're going to be deaf _and_ blind," he says and Hinata jumps down from his comfortable spot on top of the ladder (scaring Kageyama just a little bit; the thing was seven feet tall for fuck's sake) and stabs his friend-crush in the cheek with his paintbrush. Kageyama freezes, slowly raising a hand to wipe at the blue smudge on his cheekbone. He gives Hinata this murderous smile and glare, and Hinata's fighting spirit vanishes completely. 

"Uh... Kags?" This is it. I'm going to die. Kageyama snatches the brush right out of Hinata's hands with little difficulty and goes right for the center of the artist's mint-green shirt. Hinata makes an offended sound (this time in earnest) and wipes some of the blob off just to smear it on the other's forehead.

One thing led to another and then they were wrestling on the floor, both trying to turn the other into a fucking smurf complete with swearing and squealing and "Dumbass! Dumbass-Hinata!!" Eventually all rules flew out the window and Hinata stopped caring about not getting paint on Kageyama's clothes and started caring more about whether or not Kageyama was ticklish by stabbing him the stomach a few times with the business end of the brush (spoiler alert: he's not ticklish. Like, at all.)

After some time the two just lie on their backs panting.

"I hate you," Kageyama eventually says between breaths. Hinata sits up and starts scanning the floor for his glasses.

"You're going to hate me even more," he says, finally finding them and sliding them up the bridge of his nose. "This stuff doesn't wash out."


	5. A musician's song is only as beautiful as the heart behind it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i know everyone's only here for the fluff but i figured it was about time that an actual plot was established so here we go

"You guys aren't playing fast enough!" Kageyama snaps, making some of his classmates recoil. "There aren't any E flats in the key signature! Stop playing them!" He places his fingers on the keys again. "Alright you guys, start from 166--"

Kageyama did like Sectional days. He really did. Those were days when each section of the band went to their respective places and practice their parts on their own. He didn't really care for their location, though. They were forced into the auditorium lobby, a tile-brick room with orange lights and holes in the ceiling, meaning their sound was thrown completely off. And to make matters worse, two entire walls were just windows, assuring that at all times there was at least one day-dreamer.

  _At least we have someone capable in charge to make sure we don't slack off,_ Kageyama thinks. _And by someone I mean me._ _But this... this is mutiny._

"Oh would you put a sock in it already?!" Kindaichi, a very angry oboe player, sticks his head through the door leading to the auditorium. "Chill out! We can hear you from in here!"

Kageyama scoffs. "Of course you can! We're flutes! We're pretty loud, despite what all _you_ loudmouths think--"

"I'm not talking about your damned instruments!" Kindaichi cuts in. "I'm talking about you! We can hear you lecturing from the goddamned seats in your stupid 'holier-than-thou' voice! Would you get _off_ your damned power trip already?!"

"Power trip?" Kageyama asks incredulously. "What the _fuck_ are you talking about?"

"You! I'm talking about you and your dumb superiority complex--!"

"But what if I _am_ superior?!"

"See, this here, this here is exactly what we're all talking about!" Kindaichi shouts, nearly throwing his oboe to the floor in disgust. "You think you're better than us. Maybe you are! Maybe you can sight-read the music better and get the fingerings down faster and do all this shit so well that the rest of us can't keep up!" Kindaichi steps out of the doorway and it swings shut, auto-locking. "But that doesn't mean you can flaunt it in our faces! That doesn't mean you just go off on your own!"

He grabs his folder off the stand so forcefully that it falls to the ground with a clatter. "See here? This song? How well do you think you can play it?"

"Perfectly--"

"Perfectly!?" Kindaichi throws his arms up, frustration evident on his face. He's almost laughing. "Perfectly. Perfectly, he says." He laughs. "Yeah, like hell!"

"What do you mean by--?!"

"What I _mean_ ," he steps forward, shoving Kageyama back a few steps, "is that you completely take over on this song! Do you even _know_ who has the melody?"

Kageyama thinks for a moment. "The clarinets--?"

"The clarinets!" Kindaichi spits. "And do you _know_ how many clarinets we have?"

"Uh... three--?"

"Three!" He yells. "We have a grand-total of _three_ clarinets! And you outplay _every single one_ _of them!_ That's not 'perfect' playing! That's bullshit! Do you know how _frustrating_ it is to have to sit next to a pile of bullshit--?!"

"Then you guys just have to be better!" Kageyama screams at the top of his lungs. Kindaichi stops, stunned by his outburst. He doesn't say anything while Kageyama heaves breaths in an attempt to calm down.

"Fine," Kindaichi huffs after a minute. "Fine. Whatever. I should've know better than to try and educate the likes of you." The way he says it is very simple, as if he were stating a fact and not an insult. He turns heel and walks into the music hallway. Whether to tell the conductor about Kageyama's outburst or to get back into the auditorium, Kageyama never figured out.

"F--fine!" He stutters out, turning to face his group again. "Whatever, guys let's get-- guys?"

The lobby is empty, save for him. Nobody had stayed to see the rest of their altercation. They'd left, probably to buy snacks from the lunch room. Cold flutes were abandoned throughout the room, some placed directly on the floor where a person used to stand. Folders sat untouched, still turned to the piece of music they were working on.

Kageyama walked over to a bench in the corner and started to cry.

* * *

Kageyama rolled over and onto Hinata. The amusing thing is that the red-head didn't seem to notice, still snoring on undisturbed.

Kageyama runs a hand through his already mussed hair. "Man... what a horrible thing to dream about," he says. His voice cracks, still heavy with sleep.

"What?" Hinata peeks a head out of his blanket burrito, squinting to try and bring his crush into focus. "Shit I'm blind," he says to himself.

"Uh... oh, nothing."

"Aw, did you have a bad dream, Kags? Need me to kiss the monsters away?" Hinata offers, detaching himself from his cocoon to try and paw around for his glasses. Kageyama sputters for a retort as he finds them and puts them on upside-down, doing a double-take at the clock. "Oh shit," he says, flinging blankets off himself and trying to detach a pair of pants from their shared clothing pile.

"What's up?"

"I have class," he says, picking books off the floor hurriedly.

Kageyama groans. "Ugh... fuck school." He watches Hinata stumble around for a bit more, wondering whether he should tell him that his glasses are on upside down. _He'll figure it out eventually_ , he thinks before yawning again. "Why are you in such a hurry anyways? You're not gonna be late or anything, it's only--" Kageyama looks at the clock and his jaw falls open.

"Oh, shit."

* * *

"Hey Kags," Hinata asks later that night. "What'd you end up dreaming about last night?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing."

"Don't lie to me, man. I have a brush full of paint and a closet full of your clothes less than ten feet away," he threatens, and Kageyama talks.

"Just some flashback shit from highschool. I got in a major fight with some douchebag."

"Hm?" Hinata muses, pressing paint onto the wall. "What about?"

Kageyama thinks for a bit before deciding that it was okay to tell Hinata about it. It's not like it was some secret or something. "Oh. He told me that I was taking over the band. And that I have a superiority complex."

Hinata laughs. "Well he's not wrong." He turns to observe Kageyama's reaction, slightly concerned when they don't start bickering like always. "Come on man. These are the jokes." He still doesn't speak and Hinata starts to get concerned. He stands, legs wobbling slightly from misuse. "Dude?"

"It's nothing," Kageyama answers. "It's just... he was the kind of guy that would've really liked to knock me down a couple pegs, you know? And wouldn't you know it. He did."

"He did?"

"Well... not him, really," Kageyama clarifies. "It's just that in college my seating was knocked down a lot."

"How much?"

"Oh... like... four chairs? I'm fourth chair."

"Pfffft," Hinata says. "That's nothing. A minor setback. You gotta get get the shit outta the way first, then you succeed! You know when I first started drawing in earnest, I couldn't even tell the difference between warm and cool colors?"

 _The what?_ Kageyama thinks. He doesn't say it out loud, though.

"And look at me now!" He points a brush at Kageyama's chest, splattering blue on the floor by mistake. "You've gotta lighten up. See the good in life! Smile more!" Kageyama tries to smile and Hinata tells him not to smile ever again.

"Look man," he sighs after Kageyama stopped grinning like a homicidal maniac. "You can't expect everything in life to go your way, yeah? Life's gonna fuck you over all the way to Sunday most of the time, you can't let this stuff get you down. Not everything goes your way all the time! You can't cruise through life like that! I met a girl who thought life was like that in eighth grade," he splats paint on the wall, leaving blue speckles in his wake, "and she was a _bitch_."

"I understand _that,_ but--!"

"Are you a bitch, Kags? Are you?"

"N- _no_ but--!"

"If you want to be one you can at least be my bitch. But not life's bitch!" Hinata continues painting. He's shouting at a cloud at this point. "Do _not_ be life's bitch!"

"Are you drunk or something?"

"That _is_ a possibility."

* * *

Hinata sits behind the counter, listening to music play from Kenma's DS. "What do I do, Kenma? What do I dooooo....?"

"Look I am not the person  you should be asking about your romantic escapades with a pretty black-haired boy." He presses some buttons and curses under his breath. A blue tadpole swims about the screen and seemed to be the source of all of Kenma's troubles.

"You better not be talking about me!" A voice sounded from the booth. Kenma snorts.

"I would never." Kuroo Tetsurou saunters over and Kenma turns around to face Hinata so that he could feign ignorance to his existence.

"What'cha doing, Kenma?" Hinata asks, helping with the illusion.

"Breeding shinies."

"What--"

"Hey Ken~" Kuroo sits next to him and looks at the screen. "I'll be your shiney. I'm just as great as one, honestly."

"Yeah, right." Hinata was surprised. His friend was displaying dangerous levels of sass. It was almost impressive.

"Oh come on now!" Kuroo says. "Let me take you to a movie--"

"No." Hinata laughs. This was great. Honest to god. Kuroo tries to talk again and Kenma silences him by changing the subject.

"So about your flute-boy issue--" Hinata turns bright red and waves his hands at him. Kill it. Kill it!

"Flute boy? What flute boy?" Kenma doesn't look up from the screen.

"Shouyou's crush is a tall, dark, and handsome music boy who goes to the same abandoned restaurant as I do to practice. By the way, tell him to stop doing that." Kenma's voice is completely nonchalant. Hinata considers jumping out of the window. He was probably too small to actually break the thing. And they were on the ground floor anyways. It would probably be easier to just run out the front door...

"Ah," Kuroo says, smiling. "So Shouyou here likes me?"

"Yeah, right," Kenma and Hinata say at the same time. "As if."

* * *

 

"Hey you know that pipsqueak has a major crush on you?" Kageyama spits out his drink. It's not even an exaggeration. He pretty much douses himself in bad lemonade.

"What?!" He asks, wiping his face. Oikawa stares at him in disbelief.

"You really haven't noticed?" He asks. "Also that was disgusting what the hell."

"Hinata has a crush on me?!" Kageyama squeaks and his senior laughs. He bangs on the table, trying to hold himself back (and failing).

"Oh my god!" He wails. "Oh my goooodddddd--!"

"Oh can it, would ya?"

"There's so much sexual tension around you guys that we can practically see it--!"

"HEY! I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!!!!" Kageyama blushes profusely. He looked like a tomato with black hair. Oikawa takes a picture for posterity. "What do I do now?" He asks, practically in tears, burying his head in his hands.

"Hey wait," Oikawa says, pocketing his phone. "I thought you'd be thrilled. You and sunshine over there are like a perfect mesh." Kageyama makes more distressed noises and Oikawa runs a hand through his hair uncomfortably. "Hmm... this punches a few holes in my plans..."

"Plans?" Kageyama peeks through a gap in his fingers and Oikawa smirks.

"Well, yeah. The _plan_ was to get you and chibi-chan to date and then I could get _you_ to ask him to do some album art," Oikawa crosses his legs. "For the band."

"For the band," Kageyama repeats. "Dude that is a shit plan. Couldn't you just ask Hinata yourself? Or get Tsukishima to?"

"Well... the little guy seems just a tad intimidated by me... you know?" Oikawa shrugs. "And you know his and Tsukki's friendship is iffy at best."

"Just get someone else to do the art. And why do I need to be _dating_ him?" Kageyama asks. He's removed his hands from his face and was instead looking at Oikawa in curiosity. Damn, Oikawa'd never really taken his little kouhai as the manipulative type, but well, there's a first time for everything.

"No, no, no, it has to be him. And you know how he is!" He replies with a smile. "He only really works well if he's happy! And he'll probably listen to you easier if the two of you are romantically involved." He could see the gears turning in Kageyama's head. _Sorry pipsqueak,_ he thinks, _but I need this album to look good if it's going to sell._ "Well? You wanna do it?"

"Uh..." There it is. The niceness that Kags usually never showed. "I don't really think this is a good idea. I don't want to hurt him."

"Hurt him? You're not gonna hurt him--!"

"What about when we break up? I mean, we're going to eventually if I don't even like him--"

"Oh come on!" Oikawa says. "Please!!! Do it for me!!! I'm begging here, Tobio, I never beg for anything!" He gives him the puppy-dog eyes. Kageyama was weak to those. "Do it for me?"

"But what if we end up hating each other--?"

"You and I don't hate each other!" Oikawa says. "And we dated!" Kageyama looks unamused. His failed love-life was a sore subject. Oikawa almost regrets bringing it up. They sit in heated silence for a bit before Kageyama blows out a breath in irritation.

"Fine. Fine, whatever," he says, glaring.

"Thank you! Oh thank you so much!" Oikawa jumps out of his seat and wraps Kageyama in a tight hug. The raven growls and tries to disentangle himself from the other, but to no avail. "You have no idea how much this means to me! For real, Tobio!"

"Yeah," he replies, uneasy. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever."

* * *

"So anyways... uh..." Kageyama was at a loss for words. "Um... You wanna go out with me?"

Hinata's eyes sparkled. He looked on the verge of tears. Guilt stabbed Kageyama in the back, but he was in too deep to pull out now. "Y-yeah. Yeah." He forces out a smile and hopes that it looked nicer than he felt.

Hinata breathed out a laugh and hugged him. Kageyama could feel tears soaking into his shirt. _Oh shit,_ he thinks. _Oh shit I've done it now._

 _Oh_ shit _I've done it now._

 


	6. Everyone is mad about something so let's watch them argue for our amusement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama hates string instruments, Hinata hates people who don't pay him and Kenma hates Kuroo's shit music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow im just banging out chapters arent i? haha sorry this one is just fluff and dialogue, i said plot was happening but clearly im a dirty liar.   
> but wow i think im almost done with this fic! its almost sad, like im sending my children to university. but yeah, maybe two more chapters at the most! its like the end of an era.  
> also its an unspoken rule that orchestra and band members are mortal enemies (watch ur backs kids im a section leader that means i have all the special flute powers haha)

So to recap, Hinata Shouyou was finally dating the love of his life, Kageyama Tobio. The raven-haired beauty with blue eyes and a smart mouth who was just a _bit_ (okay a lot) anal about his flute and his music and just about anything that you blew into to make noise, was finally his.

So what's the problem?

The _problem_ was that Hinata was going to implode. Literally.

He had _no idea_ how boyfriends were supposed to act. He had completely regressed; he could barely make _eye contact_ with the other without the room spinning (and this time not from pure lovestuck-ness).

He had _one_ other experience with dating a person, and that was when he and Yachi did it to 'try things out' (spoiler: it didn't work out in fact the two of them realized they were both gay right afterwards). And that relationship didn't exactly prepare him for the whirlwind of swears and insults (and prettiness) that was Kageyama Tobio.

Hinata sighed in irritation. He'd thought that finally starting a relationship with him would make his life easier. So far it just made it awkward and uncomfortable. Even more so than usual. He's just a ball of nerves now.

 _Well, at least I finally get to kiss him,_ Hinata thought, dozing off behind the counter. _Man, I'll bet flutists are great at kissing... not that I would mind terribly if he_ wasn't _good at kissing either... Wait-- I've never kissed a person before!_ Hinata sat up, falling off the stool he'd drawn up behind the cash register and drawing several concerned looks from customers. _Oh god! What if I'm terrible? What if it's like, a total dealbreaker?! Kageyama'd probably get super pissed-- wait, has he kissed anyone either? Has he even_ dated _someone before?_

 _Of course he has,_ Hinata waves off the absurd thought, _something as handsome as him has definitely gotten boyfriends and girlfriends befo-- girlfriends!! Oh god, what if I'm his first boy?! What if he decides that I'm not good enough and he likes girls more than me?! Girls are definitely nicer than I am-- I don't even know how to kiss! Plus, girls smell nicer and they're generally a lot gentler and prettier--_

"Hinata," a shadow covers his face and Hinata looks up.

It was Suga. "You're disturbing the customers."

Hinata looked around. Everyone was staring at him. He laughed awkwardly before waving at them, which seemed to satisfy most of them. "Y-yeah... sure am, huh? Ha ha ha..." _Oh god I can't believe people saw that._ He stood up, brushing dirt off his apron.

Suga gave him an odd look but didn't question him further, to which Hinata was grateful for.

* * *

"Hey Shouyou, you seem a lot more tense than usual," Nishinoya told Hinata. "You doing alright? Who should I beat up?"

Hinata rubbed sleep out of his eyes. "Noya, the thought of you trying to beat up the sources of my problems is both hilarious and terrifying." _Because the thought of you trying to beat up Kageyama would most likely end in death. Not sure who's. Probably mine._

"Oh? So it's a person?"

"Not necessarily. You'd probably start with punching that tree over there," Hinata points at a tree-stump covered in weeds. "There's an ax in your shed."

"Why are you in my shed?"

"Why are you offering to beat up a tree-stump?"

"Touche," Nishinoya says. Hinata pretty much stabs his canvas with a brush, making Nishinoya jump. He lazily drags it about, smearing at the side of the forest.

The 'forest'.

The angry black and brown blob.

"I hate painting," he said simply, still practically impaling the canvas with the bristles of his brush. Perhaps it wouldn't be too bad if he actually managed to break it... it'd at least give him an excuse to start over on this nightmare.

"I do too."

"I hate art."

"I do too."

"I'm covered in paint."

"You look like a coal miner." Their lazy banter continued for a bit until Asahi slid open the door and asked if they wanted to come inside for lunch.

"What's got you down, Hinata" He asked him once they were all inside. "You're not eating as much as usual."

Instead of answering, Hinata threw his head back with a groan. Nishinoya laughed. "Hinata's being mentally assaulted by a tree-stump--"

"I'm going to _physically_ assault you if you don't shut up--"

"Threatening your senpai? How rude!" They share a laugh but it does nothing to bring up Hinata's somber mood.

It wasn't just the tree that was bothering him, it was everything. The painting wasn't coming out well, the weather was colder than he'd thought it would be, he'd hit major art block as to what kind of color palatte he should use for Kageyama's ceiling. Oh. Kageyama.

Good god, Kageyama.

What does he do. With Kageyama.

What do people do when they date anyways? So far nothing has changed. Do they hold hands? Go on dates? What even is a 'date', anyways? What constitutes as a 'date'?

The was turning out to be a huge problem. Humongous problem.

"Hey, Asahi, what do you think constitutes as a date?" Hinata asks.

"A-a date?!" Asahi turns red. "Uh... a movie? Maybe?" Nishinoya starts laughing.

"Leave it to Asahi to think up the most cliched date ever!"

"Hey, movies are nice!"

"Yeah, if you're acharacter in a bad teen-drama!"

They continue arguing. Hinata wants to die.

* * *

Kageyama ends up taking Hinata to an art store for their first date. Literally. _This probably doesn't even count as a date,_ he thinks. He'd asked Hinata where he'd wanted to go and he said he needed more paint thinner. He probably didn't even _realize_ this _was_ a date.

God.

Not that this wasn't nice and all, but everything was very... white. It hurt Kageyama's eyes, to be honest.

And all the screaming children hurt his ears. He wasn't sure how Hinata could stand it. "Oh, I have a kid sister," he said. "Well, she not so much a kid now, she's in highschool."

Kageyama asked if she played an instrument (because all he really cared about was whether or not she was in band) and recoiled in digust when he said she played the violin in orchestra. Somewhere in the back of him mind he remembers being told that at some point.

He makes a face. "Ew."

"Ew? What's so gross about my sister-?!" Hinata's eyes started to get that murderous glint that they'll sometime get and Kageyama quickly corrected himself.

"Not your sister, the orchestra." Hinata blinked, the look fading away. Now he just looked really confused.

"Aren't you _in_ an orchestra?"

"Yeah, a symphonic one!" Kageyama made a wild gesture and knocked several palette knives off the wall which Hinata promptly bent over to pick up. "Not some dumb normal orchestra with dumb normal orchestra noobs who think they're _so_ much better than us--"

"Us?"

"Yes, us, the band, don't interrupt me." Kageyama started lauching into a harsh tirade, most of which Hinata tuned out whilst trying to sort the knives. "They think they're _so_ good, you know the rest of the world has like, an orchestra-bias or something? Like, they think orchestra and they think some sophisticated high-society, but then they think band and they think a bunch of loser children dicking around and being stupid! It's like they think bands are only here to march around and make shapes for their amusement--"

"Uh-huh." _Nicole #17, where would this one go?_

"And apparently orchestras are so much better or something! Just because they got Platinum every year and we're stuck with shitty gold-- we were judged by an orchestra person, she had bias too! All she could talk about was their ' _fantastic_ bowing,' like what kind of bullshit is that?"

"Oh man, that sucks," _Man, the organization in this store is pretty sub-par._

"Regardless of the fact that we're only ever one or two points off from a Platinum score ourselves! Plus, they have no dynamic range-- all this build-up, and nothing out of it! I mean, I know we play loud, but at least we _can_ play loud! That's more than I can say for those orchestra losers who can't do shit-- you know what they do to get quieter and louder?" Kageyama starts pointing at imaginary people and Hinata decides that he's officially lost it.

"You, you, and you play, but the rest of you can't come in until we get to forte-- it's why they only have one dynamic! And they have the nerve to tell _us_ that _we're_ bad? They don't even know how _hard_ it is to play our instruments! Have you ever tried to play the piccolo, Hinata? It's not easy--!"

"Kags--"  _I should probably stop him now that I'm out of knives._

"They're all just a bunch of watered-down Conrads--" _Who the hell is Conrad?_   "--with fancy guitars, that is literally what they are."

"Kageyama--!"

"You know one of them tried to kidnap me and use me as a ritual sacrifice? Who does that--?"

"Kageyama." Hinata looked him square in the eyes. Man, he sure hates the orchestra. "Calm down."

Kageyama takes a few deep breaths and looks at him in exasperation, like _I cannot believe you aren't as angry about this as I am_ , before straightening out and huffing out an angry sigh. "Fine."

Hinata smiled. "There, now doesn't it feel better now that you've remembered to breathe?"

 _Breathing, another thing that the orchestra doesn't have to worry about,_ he thinks. _Have you ever listened to a professional band recording? They don't breathe. I have_ passed out _in the past from lack of air, and they don't even_ need _it. They have like, machines that automatically supply oxygen into their blood or something._

Kageyama doesn't manage to answer him. He's still mad at the orchestra players.

It's pretty surprising, though. He's never met someone who could get him out of a rant about the opposing music group that easily. One time Yamaguchi spent twenty minutes trying to calm him down (while Tsukishima video-taped the whole thing) before he'd even taken a breath.

Those flute players, man. Lungs of steel.

"Whatever," he says. Hinata smiles.

* * *

After the "Orchestra War of 2015," that's what Hinata likes to think of it as, things get a lot less awkward between the two of them. Between the loud complaining about violins (they're _so many_ of them and I can still outplay _every single one of them!_ ), angry paint wars, and Tsukishima telling them to "Just kiss already!" the two of them managed to remember that they're still the same Hinata and Kageyama they've always been. Just with a big 'Just-Married' label stuck to the back of their shirts (once literally, courtesy of Oikawa).

Sometimes it was hard to remember that they were dating in the first place, which Kageyama did not think was normal. People who are dating should do date-y things. Or something.

He really had no idea what he was supposed to do (oh how the tables have turned).

 _Why should I care, anyways?_ were Kageyama's thoughts on most days. _I mean, it's not like I'm actually dating him, I'm just doing a dumb favour for Oikawa._

But other days, he thought about how nice it was that they were dating. _No one thinks it's weird anymore that we sleep together. That's convenient. And he is pretty cute. And nice. I still hate him though, but now it's like, really watered down hate. The kind that I reserve for really hard parts in songs that I say that I hate even though I really kind of_ _love it._

(Kageyama's a dumb nerd who can only understand things through music analogies).

More often than not, though, they don't even realize they're in love. Hinata was busy trying to juggle schoolwork, art, and his job, and Kageyama was busy with his flute. It's not like they were passing each other by, quite the contrary, but they didn't go on dates or kiss or hold hands or anything like that.

It was more like they were an old married couple. In a way. They lived together, they shared a room, they had their own jobs and hobbies. They argued (frequently), but none of it serious or lasting more than ten minutes at the most. It was nice, Kageyama decided. Yes, dating Hinata Shouyou was very nice.

He'd finally scrapped together enough savings to rent out a piccolo, too (Oh _god_ what is that horrible noise?!). He was dating someone he sort-of-kind-of liked (at least he didn't _mind_ so much being called his boyfriend). He (and the rest of the condo) had gotten used to the smell of paint fumes that stuck to all of their clothes and posessions. Things were looking up.

But there was still the issue of the deal. The deal.

Oh god how does he even bring it up? 'Yo dude Oikawa wants you to draw him an album cover, you in?' The idea wasn't... bad, but... no, no, there were definitely more tactful ways to go about it.

Try number one. "Uh... Hinata?" Hinata turned around. He's wearing his glasses upside-down again, and the sight of it is so very cute and silly and just plain _Hinata._.. that guilt bubbles up in Kageyama's stomach and he waves it off with a 'nevermind' and promptly exits the room.

Try number two. "So... how much do you usually get paid for a job?" _Not that Oikawa had promised to pay him, but--_

"Oh my god, do _not_ bring this topic up!" _What._

"I never get paid for stuff! Not enough at least!" _Wait, what?_   "I did a mural for this guy's store on the wall once and he was just like, 'sorry kid, I'm old and stupid and I need to save my fucking money so here's half--"

"Uh, Hinata?"

"Don't interrupt me, god, you're the one who got me started on this in the first place!"

"Hinata!!"

"And so to make up for it I open commissions online and you know what those assholes do? They're like, 'your prices are too high! I'm not gonna pay that! And--"

Kageyama grabs the top of Hinata's head and squeezes until he starts complaining that he's going to go bald."Nevermind," he growls before stomping away in irritation.

Let's never, ever do that again.

Try number three. Third time's the charm.

Hopefully.

This time Kageyama came with no master plan. He laid all the cards on the table. Final shot. He took a deep breath before stepping into the room.

"HeyHinatayouwannadrawOikawaanalbumcoverhereallywantsyoutodoit."

It took Hinata a few seconds to decode what he'd said, but once he did he just smiled and said "Okay, sure, what's his album sound like?"

Kageyama banged his head on the wall.

* * *

Within a few days, Oikawa somehow become the literal human embodiment of 'listen to my mixtape'. 

Except his mixtape is his own dumb self playing which somehow makes it even more pretentious than it already was.

They stood in Karasu Cafe. It was Hinata and Kenma's shift, but nobody was there anyhow, so it didn't matter that he was wasting his time sketching cover-designs instead of actually working.

"Why are you so desperate for an album cover anyways?" Hinata asked him. "Just do something dumb and punk-rock, that's just what all your music is." He was getting pretty fed-up with this guy's bullshit. Pretty fed-up indeed.

He liked his music, though. It was his type of stuff.

He was completely unhelpful and obnoxious and sure his band sounded good and yeah he was pretty good at the guitar and his voice wasn't too bad, but Hinata was certain that he had no part in the creative process for any of these songs considering he had zero imagination and was really, _really_ annoying.

Really annoying. Oh my god.

Oikawa didn't seem to notice Hinata's passive-aggressiveness. "Our record-deal is threatening to cut down our advertisement if we don't come up with a pretty-looking cover _to_ advertise."

"Don't they have people for this?"

"We have a pretty... small label."

Hinata stared on, unimpressed. "What."

"Uh... You know Akaashi Keiji? He kinda... manages us." Oikawa laughed uncomfortably. "He handles all the negotiating and stuff."

"... right." Hinata turned back to his sketchbook. "What's the album called?"

"Well... we're not sure yet."

"Are you kidding me." He was starting to believe that doing this favour for his boyfriend was becoming less and less worth it.

"Well, yeah! How do you title things, anyways?"

"I have to draw with a theme in mind, you know!"

"Well-- um." Oikawa didn't have a ready comeback for him, he just walked out of the room, boots thumping on the ground, with a care-free 'good-luck!' and exited the shop.

That jerk.

"Kenma!" Hinata called. "Kenma! Hey, Ken--"

"You're too loud." The elusive pudding-head exited through the Employees Only entrance, clip-board in hand. "Just because you can slack off and draw stuff all day doesn't mean I can."

"Sorry Kenma," Shouyou smiled. "You've heard Oikawa's music though, right? I think Kuroo's in the band--"

Kenma very subtly made a face. He didn't usually let his emotions show on the outside, but if you looked closely you could tell very easily what he was feeling.

Kenma looked disgusted.

"I hate their stuff, it's just bubblegum pop junk. I wouldn't listen to it myself."

"Really?" He's actually voicing an opinion on something? That's odd.

"Well, you got an idea as to a theme of the stuff?" Hinata was grasping at straws here. "Cause I really need one if I'm going to make this look good." Kenma just shruged.

"It's all just pretenious punk-rock bullshit to me."

* * *

He's only doing this because Oikawa wanted him to. He's only doing this because Oikawa wanted him to! He's only doing this because Oikawa wanted him to?

Is that really the case here?

Step one: He asks out Hinata (It's _all_ fake!)

Step two: He gets Hinata to art.

Step three: He breaks up with Hinata because he'd never loved him in the first place. Someone as jaded and angry and just plain mean as him could never be loved. Someone as jaded and angry and just plain mean as him could never love anybody. 

Yeah, okay.

Keep telling yourself that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my band member arrangement goes as follows:  
> oikawa-- lead guitar and vocals  
> kuroo-- lead singer (and sometimes back-up when oikawa takes over) and bass  
> bokuto (i know he hasnt showed up but he's there)-- drums  
> tsukki-- keyboard and all the techno stuff and distortion (haha there's a trick and nobody even knows it yet)  
> ennoshita (surprise bet you didn't think he was gonna be here)-- guitar  
> akaashi-- manager  
> yamaguchi-- biggest fan (like wow he loves what they do holy shit)


	7. Welp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay remember like two chapters ago when i said that i was going to be ending this in like two chapters??? i think i lied. i think i lied so hard. i do like no planning for these things. and i fucking lied.

Hinata and Kageyama get to watch Oikawa's band practice and Kageyama nearly has a goddamn heart-attack because how can they s _wing their instruments around_ like that they're going to _smash a guitar or something holy **shit** -_-

He stands there in shock, ears automatically evaluating the music. Guitar's too loud. Vocals are too loud.  I can see Tsukishima playing but where the fuck is the piano? Perhaps he's being a bit too harsh because it _is_ Oikawa's band and well, _fuck_ Oikawa. But perhaps it doesn't even matter because it's not like any of the information his ears are processing ninety miles a minute. His attention was focused elsewhere.

Most of it was still focused on Oikawa (and the monstrosity that was the tricks they were pulling-- oh shit what the hell did bed-head just do a backflip?!) but somewhere in the back of his head he was a swirling, molten mess. And over the stupidest thing too.

Like goddamn, Kageyama never really thought that he'd be obsessing over something _Hinata_ was doing, but here we are today. The ginger was scribbling notes in a blank sketchpad page with the concentration that Kageyama could only describe as 'angry thirteen year old Kags stares intently at the piano whilst trying to learn an Invention'. In one corner was a blue sticky note. Everything started out nice and neat, but somewhere half-way down Hinata's handwriting descended into hell. It was the reading equivalent of trying to understand a welsh accent.

Then came the panels. The 'panels'. The angry scribbles across the page. Because while yes, at one point they were little boxes vaguely resembling album covers eventually they all became monstrous pen-marks blotting out chunks of paper.

But this was all on the surface. Kageyama didn't _really_ care about the album cover (not that he didn't have a slight interest), what he was really concentrating on was how hot Hinata had suddenly become. Holy shit. Seriously what happened.

It was like the short idiot suddenly went from well, a short idiot, to the most aesthetically pleasing person in the entire world. It was like someone just hit the gas, zero to one-hundred in no time flat. It was a very quick escalation.

And it was really grinding on his gears.

Since when did Kageyama like Hinata in any _romantic_ sense? Sure, he 'appreciated' his legs at one point, but other than that? What?

How could he let this happen, was the main thing he was worried about. How could he let his guard drop so much to let someone like Hinata into his heart. How.

Oikawa'd ruined dating forever. Forever. Broken doors and broken hearts and broken everything, so Kageyama just. Swore off dating. And now fucking Hinata with his goddamn shit-eating grin comes in like _holy fuck_ kicking open that stuck door and painting over the fault lines lying in wait under his skin. Okay so maybe now he's just waxing poetic. And exaggerating a little bit.

Maybe.

Bokuto breaks a drum head and Kageyama feels like it's just a metaphor for his life.

* * *

Pretty true metaphor, really. Because the rest of his week is just the _worst fucking week of his **entire life.**_

Everyone thinks he's exaggerating but he's really not.

A short list of what's happened to Kageyama just on Monday morning, 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. _alone_ :

  * 8:02 a.m. -- Kageyama wakes up on a day that he doesn't have class without his consent.
  * 8:02 a.m. -- It's because someone knocks a bottle of paint thinner and linseed oil onto him.
  * 8:03 a.m. -- Hinata successfully avoids being smitten because Kageyama is still so confused as to his feelings about him that he's not trying as hard as usual to crush his skull.
  * 8:56 a.m. -- Four showers later and he still smells like the fucking plague.
  * 9:06 a.m. -- He realizes that he did in fact have class that day. He missed it.
  * 9:32 a.m. -- He tries to practice to make up for missing class. Where the hell is his tuner.
  * 9:40 a.m. -- Who the fuck is Hinata talking to. Why do they sound so friendly. Let's bother him about my missing tuner. Basically
  * 10:00 a.m. -- Okay seriously where is it.



The rest of his day ends up being just as bad. The rest of his week is even worse, if that was even possible. Kageyama is so done by friday afternoon that when the director announces that Kageyama had placed even worse than before in the most recent chair auditions he pretty much kicks his stand over in anger in disgust and subsequently gets kicked out of class.

Walking home was a task in and of itself, Kageyama being so absorbed in his rage that he nearly gets hit by the bus instead of getting on it.

Seventh chair. He was seventh. Chair.

And now he was talking to Hinata. Life couldn't get much worse.

"Geez, what crawled up your ass and died?" Is what Hinata chooses to open with and Kageyama seriously considers pushing over that ladder.

"Nothing," he opts to growl instead, dropping his bag on the floor with a bang. "I'm fine."

"Sure you are," Hinata flippantly replies. Rather than pursue the topic he just turns back around and continues to paint stars on the ceiling. Somehow this bothers Kageyama more than he thinks it should.

 _He doesn't even care_ , he thinks. Whatever.

He tries to set up a folding stand in the corner and nearly throws it out the window. He leaves it in a heap on the floor, spitting curses at it.

"Dude?! What the fuck--?"

"Shut-up!" He hisses. "Leave me alone! God!" He tries to pick it up again and nearly starts crying out of frustration.

"Kags?" Hinata climbs down the ladder, reaching out to grab his boyfriend's hand. Kageyama's fingers twitch as if trying to escape, but Hinata's grip is solid. "What's up. Let's talk it out."

"There's nothing to talk about," he grunts, choosing to glare at his backpack rather than meet Hinata's gaze.

"Yeah there is you dumbass tell me."

"No. Whatever."

Hinata let's out a small sigh, taking off his glasses and tucking them into his shirt pocket. He sits on the bed, waiting for Kageyama to do the same. They don't speak for a while. Then out of no where, Kageyama explodes.

"It's just so fucking stupid okay?! I'm good! I got a half-scholarship as a flute-- a _flute_! That kind of stuff is nearly impossible! It cannot be done! And--and I'm seventh? Seventh chair?! What does that even imply? That I'm not good enough for first anymore?! Was I ever good in the first place?! God fucking damn it!!"

He's just a mess. He's crying and wiping snot and tears off his face but he's also screaming like it was the end of the world. Hinata was honestly afraid that Kageyama would stab him and then cry into his stab wounds. But he was also prepared for that possibility. Kageyama buries his face into his shoulder and Hinata just lets it happen. He screams gibberish and sounds like he's dying, and Hinata just let's it happen.He doesn't bother trying to say anything, just sits there and occasionally smooth's down Kageyama's hair.

And when he starts to calm down, Hinata starts to speak.

"You know what? It's okay."

Kageyama is not amused. "What the fuck no it's not--"

"It really is though. Really. Because you are gonna improve. Mmm-hmm."

"No I'm not Kindaichi was right--"

"Well I mean, you haven't given up, right?" Kageyama doesn't have a comeback for that one so Hinata continues. "I mean, you tried to come back and practice, right? You cried about it. You still _care_ , don't you?"

"... Yeah." His voice is quiet. "What's your point."

"Welp," Hinata hops off the bed. "I really don't know. That's more for you to decide." He gives a big smile and spreads his arms like he's going in for a hug while cradling the entire world in his arms. "But I do know that you should start to see the silver linings in everything. After all," he points at Kageyama's feet, drawing his gaze, "if you always keep your face towards the ground, you'll never be able to see the sky."

And then Hinata points upwards at the ceiling, and Kageyama follows. Except it wasn't the ceiling anymore. Now it was a window to the rest of the world.

"Huh," Kageyama says. "How did I miss that?"

"Dunno. Maybe you should look up some more." And he smiles and Kageyama finally realizes just how fucked he really is.

* * *

Oh how the tables have tabled, for real this time, because Hinata used to be the bumbling mess when it came to their relationship. Hinata used to be one fumbling over his words and blushing every two seconds. _Hinata._

Not Kageyama. But he didn't even notice. Sure he felt his heart pounding and he heard himself speaking too quickly and he could feel the heat in his cheeks but to him it didn't even matter because it was _Hinata_ he was talking about _Hinata_ he was thinking of. Hinata and _only_ Hinata was the one who warranted this level of sheer infatuation. Only Hinata.

At this point he could've told Kageyama to walk off a cliff and he would've done it so long as he let him hold his hand.

He almost wanted to thank Oikawa because well it's _kind_ of his doing. This happiness. This love. The thought almost put a damper in his perfect mood, but not really.

He spaces out, doodling Hinata all over his paper. At least he's trying to, he's not the artist of the relationship after all but those egg-shaped things with poofy hair were definitely Hinata. Oikawa walks in , followed by the same poofy egg excitedly holding a piece of card-stock. Kageyama scrambles to cover up the incriminating artwork and ends up flinging his notebook off the table in the process.

 _Whatever,_ he thinks. _Play it cool._

"Hey, hey. Uh hey. Hi."

_Nailed it._

"Kags, check out what I finished just now!" Hinata practically smothers him with his artwork. "It's Oikawa's band's album cover! Is it good?"

He doesn't really look at it. Mostly black and white, kind of cutesy. He couldn't seem to force himself to read the words. Too preoccupied with making sure his face doesn't accidentally set his hair on fire with how hot it was getting. 

Hinata purses his lips and Kageyama literally leaves.

* * *

"Good for you, right?" Oikawa's smirk was so wide he could've been mistaken for Kaneki Ken.

"What the fuck are you on about?"

"Well, now that Hinata's done with the cover, you can break up with him."

Kageyama catches. For a moment he's about to deny it, but then he realizes that yeah. That was kinda the deal. Except he didn't really _want_ to break up with Hinata anymore; they were happy, _he_ was happy.

But was he planning on telling Oikawa this? Smug as fuck Oikawa who'll tease him about anything and everything? Oikawa, who'll ruffle his hair and call him Tobio-chan~ in that shitty voice as if he'd never hurt Kageyama, as if he'd never even broken his heart.

No. What the fuck no.

"Haha... yeah..." he says quietly, but in the end it wasn't really needed. Oikawa was already gone, so he wasn't there to watch as Kageyama turn around and round the corner. He wasn't there to watch Kageyama walk straight into Hinata, wasn't there to watch as he said a short hello before getting punched in the face.

Oikawa wasn't there to watch as Kageyama fell to the ground, blood dripping out of his nose and sprayed across Hinata's knuckles. Wasn't there to laugh as Kageyama cupped his palms around the gushing red pouring out of his face, wasn't there to hoot and holler as Hinata tried in vain to hold in tears, trembling and shaking.

Wasn't there to hear the words "No problem, Kags!! I'll do you a favor, I--I'll fucking break us up _for_ you, huh?!" nor the words "You fucking dick!" nor to watch the spectacle as Kageyama sat there on the ground, dumbstruck, blood dripping freely out of his nose and mouth and landing on the floor like soft, dead roses.

Wasn't there to watch as, finally, after years of staring at the space where Hinata disappeared (right through the door, the one that was broken last time one of his relationships ended), he threw himself back on the floor with a scream of anguish. "FUCK!!" he yelled, loudly enough to alert the entire neighborhood. But Oikawa wasn't there to see that either.

Oikawa was gone.

And so was Hinata.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop sorry this took so long to get out, i've had this written for months but i legit couldn't finish it i had NO clue how to go about the last scene there. welp.  
> anyways, my insp to finally get off my ass and write this shit was this pic by shounenkings:  
> http://shounenkings.tumblr.com/post/117991471092  
> lol yeah i was like 'kuroo on bass... that's what he plays in my fic.... shit'


	8. Thought Tangents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kuroo is on a mission and goddammit if he doesn't succeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one is oddly heavy i haven't slept since six pm last nght things just took a weird turn while i was writing.
> 
> also sorry about the late update! i was out of the country for a while but im gonna try and get this finished asap for you guys!

**To: Hinata Shouyou**

**From: Kags**

**hinata??? can we talk abt this??**

* * *

**To: Hinata Shouyou**

**From: Kags**

**i kno u probably dont care, but im rly sorry.**

* * *

**To: Hinata Shouyou**

**From: Kags**

**im sorry.**

* * *

**To: Hinata Shouyou**

**From: Kags**

**hinata???**

* * *

**To: Hinata Shouyou**

**From: Kags**

**u broke my nose**

* * *

Kenma looked up from scrolling through a list of unanswered text messages from Kageyama. "You should really talk to him."

Hinata groaned. He wore a black baseball cap and sunglasses, trying to block out as much light as possible. See Hinata was very, very hungover. Binge drinking and death will do that to you. He slumped forward over his coffee (black as his soul currently) and grumbled under his breath incomprehensibly. After a little bit of this led to zero response from Kenma, he looked up "No."

Kenma looked back at the screen, then pointed to it matter-of-factly.

"You broke his nose, Shouyou."

"He broke my HEART, Kenma!" Hinata exclaimed loudly, throwing out his arms violently enough that he nearly knocked over his cup.

They were slumped over in this giant pink marshmallow in the corner of Kenma's apartment room. Hinata was always secretly jealous when he came over; for one, Kenma had one of those aparments that actually had more then one room. There was a legitimate kitchen and bath room and guest room and everything, which never ceased to amaze. That plus some really neat decor and actual tables and closets and a shit-ton of video games. Plus everything was so organized? And like, a soft shade of pink which made everything really cozy.

And then there was the big marshmallow-y beanbag that they were both folded into. 

"I fucking HATE him! That DOUCHE!"

"I feel like this can be resolved--"

"What the hell I have half the mind to burn his fucking house down--!"

"-- with some simple conversation."

"But I literally left all of my shit at that place All of it! And--"

"I can tell, you're wearing Kageyama's hoodie."

"I am! You know how you can tell?? BECAUSE HIS DOUCHEY ASS IS SO TALL--"

There was a click and the door to the room opened. In stepped Kuroo, wearing red basketball shorts and one of their university hoodies, a sight so sudden that it actually managed to get Hinata to shut up for once.

"Hey Kenma I can't get the microwave to work," the tone of his voice made it seem like everything was normal. Hinata gaped at him, unsaid words dying in the back of his throat.

Kenma looked at him unamused for a moment. "You _broke_ the microwave--"

"No I didn't break the microwave," Kuroo said before Kenma could finish. "I just... I don't know it won't spin anymore. I don't... I think i just--"

"Broke the microwave?"

"I didn't break the stupid microwave it just won't spin, okay?" They sat in silence, Kuroo fuming at the ears and Kenma looking slightly amused. After a few moments Hinata spoke up.

"What are you even doing here?" Kuroo looked at Kenma, who decided to start up a game of Battle-Cats on Hinata's phone rather than provide an answer. Hinata's head snapped to the side and he stared holes into the side of Kenma's head.

"Uh..." Kenma started, not seeming ready to continue anytime soon. "Um. Well--"

"We fucked." Kuroo announced loudly.

Hinata's jaw dropped to the floor. "You--"

"Fucked."

He looked at Kenma again who made a conscious effort to avoid eye contact. "You fucked?! Are you kidding me?!"

"Uh, Shouyou--" Kenma was furiously smashing the laser in the corner, practically punching his thumb through the screen.

"You were literally shoving sass down this guy's throat what like, two day ago?! You were literally shoving a metaphorical foot up his ass and now he comes sauntering in like 'hey Kenma what's up with your weird microwave man also can I suck your dick?'" Kuroo snorts.

"Looks like sass wasn't the only thing he was shoving down my throat--"

"Yeah and the metaphorical foot-in-ass wasn't so metaphorical either, huh?" Hinata shoots an accusing glare at Kenma.

"That's gross, Shouyou."

" _You're_ gross, Kenma," he replies smartly. Kenma looks at Kuroo who (thankfully) receives the message to get the fuck out. Hinata throws his arms up in exasperation and slumps back into the marshmallow.

"Great. Everyone's relationships are going great except for mine." Kenma shrugs, not taking his eyes off the game.

"And Kageyama's, by extension." Hinata glares at him again and he makes a face like 'hey not my fault' and says, "You _did_ break his nose, Shou."

"Whatever, man. Help me think of a way to get all my stuff back." Kenma reaches forward and grabs Hinata's coffee cup off the table. He takes a sip.

"Hmm... we could get Kuroo to do it. He's pretty chill."

"What the fuck like you're gonna call up your weird bass-player boyfriend to do me a solid?" Hinata scoffed. "Not gonna happen, man. Fuck that." Hinata takes a sip of his coffee, burning his tongue. Kenma shrugs, looking back at the screen.

"Oh. I died."

"Thervth you right!"

"Just like your chances of ever finding love again."

"..."

"And your chances of passing this semester given that you are no longer in possession of your paints, brushes, palettes, mediums, not to mention the fact that you left your glasses at Kageyama's place so you probably won't be writing that final essay any time soon, plus you don't even have your _keys_ \--"

"KUROOOOOO I NEED A FAVORRRR!!!"

* * *

Oikawa hears the doorbell ring and nearly trips over himself to open it. "HINATAHHH FUCK IT'S YOU." He says, opening the door wider for Kuroo to entire. The black-haired bassist starts to take off his shoes, raising a quizzical eyebrow at his band-mate.

"Nice to see you to--"

"Yeah that's nice what do you want, don't tell me you forgot when practice was again--"

"Yeah okay when you're done talking into a mirror would you mind explaining what crawled up your ass and died?"

Oikawa heaves a loud, overdramatic sigh. "Tobio-chan is in a massive slump and I feel bad!"

"Because Hinata dumped him? Also why do you feel bad--?"

"BECAUSE IT'S MY FAULT KUROO I DID IT!! IT WAS ME, _ME_!!" Oikawa leans forward and points to his face desperately. Kuroo makes no move to console him and Oikawa throws up his arms, groaning, before burying his face in his hands. "The whole dating thing was a plan that I cooked up so Hinata would draw up an album cover for us."

"Why the fuck would you do that--?"

"BECAUSE ARTISTS ARE WEIRD AND I THOUGHT THEY WOULD MAKE A CUTE COUPLE!" Oikawa slumps himself over in one of the chairs next to the kitchen table. "AGH! And they were! They were _so_ cute!" He slams his head on the table, most likely destroying what little brain cells he had left, and starts screaming. Whether from pain or desperation Kuroo couldn't tell.

"I just don't know what to _do_ , Kuroo, what do I _dooooAHHHHHHHH_!"

Kuroo breathes out a disappointed sigh. He's only just entered this place and then Oikawa pulls this on him. In fact he's not even in the house yet. He's still half in the doorway, really. One of his shoes is still in his hand.

Honestly. He really should've expected this from his previous experiences in The Madhouse. _They should all really just get their own places,_ Kuroo thought. _It would make so much easier on all of us... why the hell are six gays all under the same roof anyways? Do they just flock together? Is it like a wolf-pack or something? A pack of gay wolves?_

Oikawa sits up suddenly. "Wait why _are_ you here?"

_Wait... there are only five now since Hinata moved out... wait but I'm here now. Am I a part of the gay wolf pack? Oh shit I fucked Kenma I am gay!_

"Kuroo."

_... Did I know that? I feel like I knew that already--_

"KUROO." Oikawa snaps, pulling Kuroo out of his sexual crisis. "Why. Are you here."

"Oh yeah!" Kuroo snaps. "I'm supposed to pick up Little-Red's stuff."

Wrong thing to say.

"NoooooOOOOOOO!!!" Oikawa wails, flung straight back into his fit of anger and frustration. "You mean he isn't coming back?!"

Kuroo thinks for a moment. "Uhhh... nope, don't think so." He talks over Oikawa's melodrama. "Yeah, Kenma says something about apartment keys?? And paints and stuff. Anyways the important thing is his glasses I think."

He looks back at the table and Oikawa is laying on the floor. "Uhh, dude?"

"Go. He's upstairs." His voice is muffled by the tile. "Listening to that stupid playlist of his."

"The Great Depression?"

"That's the one."

* * *

"Kageyama?" Kuroo nudges Kageyama with the toe of his slippers. "You okay?"

It was more of a formality than anything since anyone could tell just by looking that Kageyama Tobio was not okay. He was laying in the far corner in a pile of around three blankets, pillows arranged around him like a fort that some five-year-old abandoned halfway. Like a sad, floppy kingdom in the sky.

Side note: holy fuck these walls did not look like this the last time he was here.

"Hey man. There's a bed right next to you ya know." No response. Kuroo let out a long whistle and knelt next to him. "Look man, I know it hurts. Shit happens, but you gotta pick yourself back up. Get back on your feet, ya dig? It's gonna be alright."

Nothing. 

"This probably isn't the first or last time you've been dumped, yeah? One day you're gonna look back at this and laugh. Plenty of fish in the sea, right?"

No response. Taylor Swift plays on. Kageyama's got his phone stuffed in a cup on the table. Kuroo takes a look at the screen and what the shit this playlist is 50 songs long what the fuck--

"Um... your phones dying."

You could practically hear the crickets. Kuroo almost dismissed the younger as asleep, moving to start gathering up what he believed to be Hinata's belongings, before Kageyama spoke abruptly.

His voice was cracked and old, like he'd been crying. Kuroo felt a pang of pity stab him in the back.

"Do you know who my last boyfriend was?" Short pause. "It was Oikawa. It was awful." Longer pause, but Kuroo didn't dare move. Kageyama rolled over and faced the ceiling. He seemed to be focusing on a constellation on the expanse of blue before his eyes.

"The paint hasn't dried yet. I can still smell it." He had the most peculiar look on his face; not sad or angry. It was almost like curiosity, as if he were thinking about something without and intention of actually focusing on it. The way a person looks at a Rubick's cube after admitting defeat, or the decent grade you got on a test.

Not bad just not. Great.

Perplexing.

"Sometimes I consider getting up on a ladder and wiping it all off while there's still time. But I know I won't do it. Hinata worked too hard." His voice takes on a nearly philosophical tone. Another long pause and Kuroo chalks this conversation up as the Most Awkward Experience of His Life, beating out that one time he got thrown out of a club for singing a duet with Oikawa on one of the tables.

And for kicking a bouncer in the face. And for stripping.

Back to the topic at hand though.

"You wanna know something he said to me once?" Kageyama said, jolting Kuroo out of his second thought tagent of the morning. "He told me not to get too hung up on the little things or else I'll miss the big picture. Do you think this counts as a little thing, though?" He rolled back over. When Kageyama gave no more signs that he was going to speak again Kuroo stepped up to the plate.

"Pretty sure it's a little thing, man."

"Hmm?" The response of bored, noncommittal. As if Kageyama had already tuned out.

Not easily swayed, Kuroo pressed on. "Yeah. Lover's spat if you will. Things'll work out with you two."

"He broke my nose."

"Look kid I don't mean to burst your bubble but I doubt your nose is broken. It doesn't look swollen and Hinata's like the size of a garden gnome.I mean, he's still wearing your sweatshirt."

Kageyama blows air out of his throat in a way that could almost be mistaken for a laugh. "Probably gonna burn it."

"Nah," Kuroo picks up a pair of glasses and nothing else. "Hinata wouldn't do that."

On his way out the door he plugs in Kageyama's phone and reshuffles his playlist.


End file.
